Sun Microsystems Reviews

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.

Pros

Flexibility, Innovation, Worklife Balance, Compensation

Cons

"Dog eat Dogged", Survival of the fittest, Layoffs continue until morale improves.

Advice to Senior Management

Be authentic, true and honest, even if that is not popular opinion.

Pros

pay is above average and people are very friendly.

Cons

not alot of postion in management

Advice to Senior Management

smart people.

Pros

No brainwash, no cubicles, engineering centered overall.

Cons

Sometimes it can be really slow.

Advice to Senior Management

Way to go.

Pros

Good work life balance and good hours

Cons

Poor growth potential and slow to release new products

Pros

Great for engineering, good people. Very open work environment and good work and family balance. They have good perks like ESPP, 401k, health insurance.

Cons

Senior management seemed to have very little insight on how to run the business aspects of the company. Missed many golden opportunities.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep some perspective on the business side of things. Keep track of chanign trends in the industry. Do not micro manage.

Pros

Sun Microsystems attracted the most smartest people in the valley.

Cons

Some of the downsides of working at Sun Microsystems no salary raises for 8 years.

Advice to Senior Management

Cutting Edge

Pros

It was a good place to work, with many driven and hardworking employees. Company morale was really good throughout many job roles.

Cons

When the dot com bust happened they laid off many workers.

Pros

sun's engineering jobs are so exciting because various new technology and products both s/w and h/w come up all the time. I'm very satisfied with working at technology rich company.

Cons

Sun don't have stable management strategy. So any new product releases and new technology
will be always changed. From customer's site planning point of view, it was so inconvenient.

Advice to Senior Management

Though it's over, we should make focus on more profitable emerging product and service area. We can succeed by SPARC/Solaris, but one the other hand we failed by them.

Pros

Technically interesting, pays well, employee perks are good, office space is conducive to getting work done.

Cons

Politics, communication could be better from senior management

Advice to Senior Management

When the market shifts out from underneath you, get on it immediately.