Sun Microsystems Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Sun Microsystems full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great People
Good Products
Perfect Location
Solaris was awesome!

Cons – Company lost focus
Services contracts were taken away form the partners

Advice to Senior Management – Go back to the customer - listen to them

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Sun Microsystems

Pros – Large corporation that has many opportunities

Cons – Highly political environment where brown nosing takes precedence over skills

Advice to Senior Management – Ease up and you'll get more production out of your employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sun Microsystems

Pros – Looks good on a resume.
Great rank and file with a very high intelligence level and a lot of drive.
Engineering staff at the contributor level is as good as it gets.

Cons – Pay and promotion have nothing to do with your achievement and contribution and are based on ones loyalty and servitude to your / upper management, whose motivation is based solely on their own advancement and power. Of course there is some level of that in "every" organization...at least at the location I was at for seven years, it is detrimental to the operations when the good ol' boys and girls network is the only way to advance.

Advice to Senior Management – Larry taking over was probably the best thing that could have happened, but a good thorough house cleaning from mid-level on up is in order.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sun Microsystems

Pros – There was a reasonable environment for a junior engineer to get going for a few years of experience. Beyond that, it's a bad place to hang around because of the bad senior management leadership and bad middle management leadership.

Cons – Senior leadership roles tend to reward those who bringing the messages they want to hear to
re-assure themselves that they are seemingly doing the right thing. Middle management leadership roles follow the policy set by the senior management roles. It's like a herd following
a blind lead.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop amusing themselves with the message of their own preference. Talk to people in the
trenches or closer to the trenches to understand the reality so as to readjust their understanding
and their dreams.

Former Employee – worked at Sun Microsystems

Pros – - Good work / life balance. Nobody worked long hours.
- Benefit was good. They even matched 401K contribution.
- Gym was nice.

Cons – - Boring project. Just fixing bad software somebody else wrote.
- Coworkers not working hard.
- If you perform well, people will dislike you.

Advice to Senior Management – I do not have any advice on the senior management because Sun Microsystems does not exist any more. I did like Mr. Schwartz's parting haiku, though.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sun Microsystems

Pros – technology as opposed to competition

Cons – short sided management decisions for personal gain

Advice to Senior Management – can Jonathan Schwartz

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sun Microsystems

Pros – Awesome place to learn, with no benefits and screwed up execution. Engineers rule, make descisions, Marketing has less to say. Exactly opposite to Oracle

Cons – Execution sucks, no incentives, Trauma with layoffs every 6 months

Advice to Senior Management – You suck

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sun Microsystems

Pros – Great technological abilities in the past;
A lot of smart people who were forced to leave or made right decision themselves and left
Huge potentials for advancements in leading technologies like Unix and Java

Cons – Imbecilic management, too afraid of making a decisions on themselves with bowing to a next in the chain of command
Paralyzed will to make any changes
Management is flying low and ducking at the first sign of a trouble
All valuable people left this rotten carcass a long time ago

Advice to Senior Management – Step out and go sweeping the streets - this is the best you're able to do. Most of the managers left in the company after 2001-2003 layoffs are disgrace to the profession.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sun Microsystems

Pros – It's great if you want to hang out and cruise in your career. You can get really good at doing your job and be very comfortable and remain unchallenged.

Cons – For most it's a dead end. Little to no opportunities for promotion. Rumors of layoffs all the time.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop hanging out and get out and better your careers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sun Microsystems

Pros – Family friendly. Co-workers are smart and great to work with. A very stimulating environment in all the technical areas. Everyone was very helpful with each others projects.

Cons – The senior management had evolved to a point of being extremely detached from the work force. Many things that they shared at all-hands meetings didn't make sense. No one could understand if they were really that far from reality or if they just didn't care what came from their mouths.

Advice to Senior Management – Too late now.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend