Company: Oracle
Date: 2014-05-19
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Tough Place
Pros: It's a big company with a lot of opportunity, smart people, and enormous market penetration. Working at HQ is pretty deluxe, with a lovely campus, numerous and diverse cafes, a well-equipped fitness center including a pool, and now the 90' racing trimaran that won The America's Cup parked in our own pond. If you do you job quietly and thoroughly you can stay as long as you want.
Cons: It's a fear-based, soul-sucking, cheapskate organization that squashes ambition, derides creative thinking, and encourages compliance. You spend much of your time managing upward. Quite frequently we are directed to follow through on ineffective or meaningless solutions because an executive mandated it. There is an unaccountable pattern of self-loathing within the company such that they're willing to support tepid ideas from outside (often through acquisition) rather than strong ideas from within. Worst of all, there are no raises or bonuses, and very little encouragement.