Company: Oracle
Date: 2014-06-16
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Zero Advancement
Pros: Many people at Oracle do not work all that hard.  There are lots of smart people.  You can get useful experience to find another job.
Cons: You will be reviled by much of the rest of the software community.  This may or may not matter to you but it can become a drag over time.

Also, there is almost no opportunity for meaningful advancement - you may get promoted, but in many cases will not get a raise, just a title, with more responsibility and/or work for no more money!  This is especially true outside the core developer groups.  Almost my entire department has had only trivial raises for many years running now, leaving many employees making effectively much less than when they began due to inflation (when I say trivial, I mean averaging under 1% annually), and this not only means you make less, but really destroys morale over time.  Oracle has 4 members of senior management who would be in the top 10 CEOs for pay, the highest paid woman executive, etc., so you can see than none of the huge profits trickle down to employees - this does not make for team spirit.  Also, the place is incredibly bureaucratic, there are hundreds of policies, approval processes, and other red tape areas where they make it difficult to get things done - the level of centralized control and policy has grown out of control to the point where it seriously impedes both productivity and morale.

On the whole, I would recommend this place only as a short term vehicle for getting specific experience that you know you will get at the first job you take - do not assume that experience will improve over time, and do not take any hiring manager's word that you will get paid more later, that you will get bonuses, or that you will advance, as those don't happen very often at Oracle, and managers lie about it regularly to recruit employees.  (I was definitely lied to and I know others who report the same experience.)