Oracle Reviews in Austin, TX Area

Pros

Lots of opportunity to do new things
Lots of chances to learn new things

Cons

Mostly internal CAD tools that are only kept around seemingly to justify someone's job. Original devs long gone so support engineers are very reluctant to make changes or improvements.
Management does not see tools as an impediment to creating high speed CPUs.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a manageable risk, otherwise the reward is too small

Pros

As an organization, Oracle is a highly competitive and dynamic place to work. From a sales perspective, Oracle compensates it's salespeople very well, with the opportunity to not only receive commissions on "net new" sales, but also on sales generated by the "inside sales" organization.

Cons

Oracle is a very "process" oriented company, with little or no room for creativity in the sales cycle. Managing the internal sales processes is extremely time consuming and cumbersome, often requiring as much time &/or work effort as managing the external sales process itself. This cumbersome process can negatively affect the pace of the sales cycle and slow down the closing.

Advice to Senior Management

The culture at Oracle is still very "database" centric, despite the multiple software packages it also develops and sells. Oracle Management could do a much better job at supporting its software sales teams when conflicts arise with the "technology" sales teams.

Pros

Large company with significant operating profits.

Driven management chain at the top of the company.

Interesting work to do on the IC (SPARC hardware) side of the business.

Reasonable local management.

Cons

Some confusion at the VP levels within the company. Decide and commit is a foreign concept. 2nd guessing is more of the modus operandi.

Pay and titles are below that of the local competitors - ARM, IBM, Intel, & Samsung.

Bonuses are lackluster unless you are at a high level and got retention money from Sun - then you can buy a new porsche panamara , r8, or mercedes benz. These are rumored to be popping up more frequently in the Santa Clara campus parking lot around the engineering buildings around the 1 year mark.

Management at various levels fail to take care of poor performers. There are several running around in the Austin, Burlington, & Santa Clara offices who seem to have 9 lives. It seems far easier to just ignore the problem than to put someone on the to be fired list.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more attention on the products that your design teams need to complete rather than name dropping what executive in the CEO's office you talked to recently. Look downwards into the org rather than upwards into the VP/CVP chains.

Pros

Lots of products to sell. Opportunities to network. Oracle is a great name to have on your resume. Pay is decent for Austin.

Cons

Management is brutal, clearly they have no interest in training the sales reps. Management was not trained very well, yelling and public humiliation of their reports was common. The comp structure is overly complicated, we were never sure what we were getting paid for.

The internal IT tools for reporting and data gathering we used were ridiculously slow. Trying to navigate the internal systems (both IT systems and approval chains) to book deals took up a large part of our time.

I was surprised at how difficult it is to get promoted at Oracle. The field sales organization will not hire sales reps from Oracle Direct, period. If you are interested in field sales it is best to come into field sales from outside Oracle. It is also difficult to be hired into management, and the pay for management is lower than the sales reps so there is little incentive to do so.

Pros

stability, a place I could have camped out if seeking mediocrity, for many many years to come. Opportunities to learn Oracle specific software

Cons

Culture killer. Take over occurred, staffing cuts made in wrong places. Slow adopter of new technology for internal use, home grown systems that are difficult at best to use

Advice to Senior Management

Far too many layers of management. Not all managers are qualified to be at the level they have risen to.

Pros

It's a job. The salary and benefits are decent.

Cons

Upper management does not seem to care about lower level employees. It takes FOREVER to fill an open position due to all the approvals needed all the way up the chain. Management can't seem to stay on a course, changes their minds all the time as to what direction to take with projects and assignments.

Advice to Senior Management

Look into why you have SO many job openings, and why so many people are leaving the company, particularly ex-Sun employees. Your processes are unnecessarily cumbersome and antiquated. You should adopt some of the Sun processes. Every single thing you try to do at Oracle takes an inordinate amount of time, and approval processes are ridiculously lengthy and go all the way up the management chain.

Pros

Great benefits, lots of technologies and customers. Very flexible in terms of remote work. In fact, the more you work from home the better.

Cons

Oracle does not pay competative salaries. There are many internal open positions but its very to move to those positions.

Advice to Senior Management

You should pay more competative salaries.

Pros

Flexible with hours, good benefits, somewhat challenging work, great group of people

Cons

no career growth, limited recognition of job well done, not fair with promotions, inconsistent with work from home policies

Advice to Senior Management

give more recognition, create career track for all

Pros

Very flexible timing. Work from home or remote location.

Cons

Limited career growth. Lower salary comparing to other companies. Big gap in salary for 2 equal position. Unfair treatment to different employees. Some were allowed to work from home and from remote. Some weren't .

Advice to Senior Management

There are title inflation. Far too many directors and senior managers with no direct!

Pros

It is a big company with a grocery store of applications and technologies. I feel very safe here and I am from one of the acquired companies. Always good to be with a winner. I have also felt that Oracle has given me a fair shake and has advanced me and enhanced my chances at career recognition and promotion.

Health insurance is the best of anyone on my block (IBM, Sun, Yahoo, Bea (now ORCL), Deloitte.

I think you can have lots of opportunities to make of yourself what you will.

Cons

Oracle's legacy culture is a little on the cutt-throat side. Many people from Oracle (not by acquisition) can seem to view other co-workers and / or other divisions as something akin to "Co-opertition". I think this has some good and bad sides. I like healthy competition and working with people that are go-getters. I do believe that sometimes the competition aspect can lead to short sided decisions (based on one's own bonus, team or other factor) that can be long term bad for the company, long term or larger team.

Seemingly tough to find that right life / work balance: at least in the sales and conuslting ranks (where money is being made / brought in), I find it difficult to sometimes balance life and work. I see many people struggling to do the same. I have ended up in a position in particular that I think really helps the situation for me and my family but I see many people that will miss their kids or other family responsibilities. Bottom line, many work crazy hours and expect you to do the same. It seems to be more about being able to answer the e-mail at an ungodly hour (the apperance of working hard) than being efficient, effective and then going home.

Advice to Senior Management

I don't have their job and their pressure, so I have no advice for Sr Management. And despite some of the things I say above, I have no idea how I would run a company of this size any differently.

Likewise, I believe Oracle has done a crazy great job with acquisitions and has again created a grocery store full of products, applications and technology that surround our competition in the market. Bad econ times seem to be upon us in 2008 and yet, I feel very safe here at ORCL (it helps in this case that I am making my numbers currently).