Company: Oracle
Date: 2014-09-01
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Interesting and rewarding for a short while. Poor management.  Talking about the UK here.
Pros: Typically large corporation.  Great benefits package related to base salary, flexible working.  Some excellent people to work with on the ground and interestingly wide range of products to work with.  I was there for more than 20 years and the first 10 were very good fun but, to be honest, you'd be hard pressed to make a technical career in the UK and local middle management isn't initiative based.  Being a self starter is important.

Don't stay too long.  It won't be rewarding unless you fancy working through the automaton management journey.
Cons: Typically large corporation. No pay rises at all for 8+ years.  Terrible processes and process oriented style of management.  No local or middle management flexibility and initiative allowed.  Most management seem to be in dread/fear of those above and those at the top are autocratic with a whiff of bullying.  The uncompromising, hard-line, fear driven management style emanates from the top of the whole corporation.

The company eschew a set of good values that are 180 degrees at odds with their practice.  Sales teams largely work against each other internally so the customer sees a conflicted organisation, and some take good advantage of that.  Others are stiffed.  

The occupational health team have a huge case load of stress related illness to deal with.  That sort of indicates what it can be like to work here.  Best to take a "don't care" attitude because if you do care about products, customers, fairness, pay, promotion and so on, you'll become another file on the health team's desk.