Sun Microsystems Reviews in Denver, CO Area

Pros

Work-Life balance in allowing work-from-home employees, to help balance the long hours required to flexibility and time-off. Working with some very smart people. I have never worked before where the majority of the people are wonderful and want you to succeed!
Empowerment! Opportunities to learn new things. My experience was positive overall!

Cons

Leadership not executing always and many pet people and projects. Seems several of executive management has their own special projects and a lot of time and energy is wasted on them only to find out the answer was already known in the beginning or it was never supported by other executive management members. United front is needed.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't sell to IBM!

Pros

Brand name that you get from working there. Certifications.

Cons

No actual work done. Too much politics. Bad products. No personal growth. Lay offs every quarter. People are trying to save their jobs every two months. So no healthy environment at work. Most of the work is made up to give you an illusion that you are needed but actually everyone is whiling time away. People pretend to work from home. So communication next to impossible. No team work as everyone is hogging work and doesnt want others to figure out that they are actually doing nothing

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management is not doing what they are supposed to do that is their work to take the company to a positive future.

Pros

Flexabile work environment, lots of oppurtunties for career growth, A broad range of products and markets to explore and learn. First company I have been with that truly has their eye on the long term and short term versus only worrying about the current quarter.

Cons

Big, slow, resistant to change. Lots of different departments that do not always communicate well. Systems and tools need serious improvement to be competitive with the rest of the high tech competitiors. Employee skill development focuses mainly on "on the job" experiance which causes alot of employees to be behind on the current best practices and tools available.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop always checking the box on goals of the executives, they pay us to think through their choices and challange them when appropiate

Pros

salary is reasonable
flex time is good

Cons

Constant downsizing.
Poor strategy
Very bad processes

Advice to Senior Management

Too many bad processes. Extremely difficult to find a person responsible to get something done. Stop peanut buttering the layoffs. Pay your bills as vendors won't talk to me because they haven't been paid.

Pros

Pros - The campus and close to home. I can work from home (depending on the project) and I enjoy that flexibility. The people on my team are nice (not effective at all at what they do, but they're nice) Depending on the project, you can work with some really knowledgeable people and the opportunities to learn are great, if you can put up with the abuse that is heaped on by the engineering staff. I'm paid well, and that's really the reason I stay.

Cons

Very political - the favorites keep getting promoted. Very top-heavy - there are lots of managers who have one or two direct reports. Management is completely out of touch with what the individual contributors have to do to get their job done. It is not unusual to work 80 to 100 hours a week to be able to try to meet the unrealistic schedules that mangaements puts out. This used to be a great place to work but the energy is gone. No raises or bonuses for the little people, but the big guy gets a 4million dollar bonus. Yeah, that seems fair!

Advice to Senior Management

Try getting in touch with what's really happening here. The 5-minute Friday pep rallies aren't doing it. There are smart, hardworking people here who aren't being heard.

Pros

Flexibility to also work from home from time to time. There still is concern for the employee. Pay is still at least average.

Cons

Distributed workforce makes you have to mostly communicate over the phone, which is isolating. A lot of people work from home and are poorly managed, hence the trouble the company is having on being productive. Constant rounds of layoffs keeps moral extremely low.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit and get new management in that can truly operate the company instead of just come up with "vision" and "strategy"

Pros

Work environment is great--get your own office and pretty much come and go as you please. Always able to work from home with little hassle. Lots of very smart people making cool products. Everyone is very nice.

Cons

Rudderless, directionless company. I was working on a project that was making money and supposedly was going to be a big staple of the business going forward when my job was cut. The distributed teams makes it hard to really build a cohesive project team. Management was generally too busy with technical issues and revamping project timelines to do much people managing. See "hit and run" management. I never thought my skills were properly utilized.

Advice to Senior Management

Leave the company! Time for new people with a fresh perspective. Sun still has a great name, but it's going to flounder until a really strong leader comes in with a vision for the future.

Pros

Sun has a plethora of very bright people, and that is a key reason to work for Sun. In addition to being very smart, most are willing to share their knowledge, and to go above and beyond to assist with the "not my job" things that come along.

Cons

Sun is in survival mode. There are limited opportunities for advancement, and limited opportunities in general. People are asked to work long hours, weekends and holidays, and the reward at the end is a layoff.

Advice to Senior Management

There is a "brain drain" happening at Sun. We need dynamic management, not the same old good ol' boys network that has gotten the company into the current situation.

Pros

I enjoy the technical work and professional development. The facilities are first class at this site

Cons

Lack of appreciation of products and technologies that actually make money.
It is frustrating to work on teams which are conducted entirely via conference calls. Although helpful to some employees to work at home, teams are considerably less effective when loosly connected across the country.
There is an brain-dead reliance on outsourcing everything to the detriment of decent IT support, product development, product management.

Advice to Senior Management

Take more of a customer focus in sales and service.
Stop promoting the hype about how superior Sun is when it denies that fact that Sun is really struggling. The price the market is willing to pay for the stock - which is below book value - should be transparently dealt with and acknowledged by management.
You really need to change the leadership culture from one of loosly coupled departments to a better
marshalled work force.

Pros

work from home, flexibility, great co-workers, really smart people, the coolest technology around, fairly good salaries and benefits

Cons

constant layoffs, a strategy that doesn't seem to be working, upper level manager (directors, VPs, executives) are promoted to their highest level of incompetence

Advice to Senior Management

Figure out how to make money. Seems like the open source strategy isn't quite working - and they don't have enough time to make it work without the revenue.