Sun Microsystems Reviews in Denver, CO Area

Pros

Great, smart, dedicated people. Outstanding work/life balance.

Cons

Upper executive management has Associated Disorder. Promotions and leadership is based on personality and friendships.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a hard look at the leaders in the VP ranks most need to go. The people they have surrounded themselves are only in it for their own personal benefit and glory.

Pros

Culture of flex working is firmly embedded. I work all the time, but I can do it at home, on the road, in a hotel, or on a campus - pretty seamlessly. Both management and the infrastructure are in place to support it.

The corporate benefit package is great. The health package is very good, paid time off is competitive, 401k with matching funds (100% vested at all times), group disability insurance, etc. There is also the concierge service which is helpful at times as well as the on campus health (workout) facilities.

Mid-level management can be very good - but it's spotty.

There used to be a good sense of camaraderie and cooperation, but it has eroded significantly over the last 2-3 years.

Sun is making strides on building a standardized operational infrastructure - around Oracle 11i - which is driving standardized global processes which in turn will help reduce the constant operational churn and cross country disconnects.

Cons

The constant RIF's and reorganization (it's annual at least on both fronts) is a royal pain. Senior management has an interesting software vision and focus, but there is very little attention on operational basics - such as workflow optimization either within lines of business or across them. VP's, Sr. Directors, and Directors generally have an extremely poor understanding of the day to day activities of their organizations. EPV's and Sr. VP's are simply disconnected from their organizations - and from reality at times it seems.

Advice to Senior Management

* Sun needs to stop being a solutions company and get focused on limited set of products. We are competing on too many fronts simultaneously. Shed unprofitable lines of business.
* Are we a hardware company becoming a software company? -or- a Services company that sells software and hardware? -or- a Software company that sells Services and 'oh yeah' hardware too?
* Stop the reorgs
* Will this equation ever really work ... Free + ? = Profitability
* The company has never done acquisitions very well. This does not bode well for becoming an 'OpenSource' community leader.
* We need to automate our business processes even more (even beyond 11i capabilities). More IT resources need to be brought back into the company and be more responsive to both Business Units and their Lines of Business.

Pros

the work from home program was always nice. As for pay, it was ok at best. I know that I was worth more, but they still did ok I think. They gave me a job out of college so I will always be greatful for that.

Cons

most of the mgmt was never too impressive at the lower ranks. I think a lot of the employees are lazy too. The company has been in trouble for a while too so promotion is something to look for on your own. Just know there is no other way to move up at sun

Advice to Senior Management

all mgmt, just listen to the employees more, and do something about it!!!

Pros

Compensation & Benefits - You gotta really need a paycheck to work here.

Cons

This is a has been interim company. Sun has become a piggy bank for Sr. Leadership - They will continue to drain the account and walk away with a bundle.

Advice to Senior Management

No one is buying - Sell, take your money and go away.

Pros

Open Work is incredibly nice and the employees are very bright. They offer great benefits and management communication and employee respect thrive. There is a lot of opportunity for advancement you never feel like you hit the ceiling like at Google. They offer a LOT of training opportunities and other employee development classes. I don't usually feel like I have to push myself hard to get through the day, and I feel like my work makes a big impact.

Cons

It seems like politics creeps into too many places hindering efforts that could otherwise be very innovative. Many employees are worried about their job security due to layoffs.

Advice to Senior Management

You really need to work on getting to the younger generation, and by that I mean a lot more than you are trying now.

Pros

none, you had to be part of the insiders to do anything

Cons

No one listens unless you are on the inside. Work here at your own risk. Do not expect to make changes. This is the Borg.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit and move on. You have killed a great company.

Pros

Working with a group of talented Sun employees
Good salary and benefits package

Cons

Lack of security - could be laid off any day due to yet another "new direction". Employees too more concerned with surviving to be able to perform to the best of their abilities.
Incomprehensible methods of awarding bonuses,
Internal politics. Too many people building their own "empires" and competing with other groups rather than looking out for the overall good of the company.
Too much outsourcing. Contractors do what's best for them and their company, not what's best for Sun.

Advice to Senior Management

Take back control instead of outsourcing to incompetent contractors.
Give employees back a sense of job security

Pros

Able to work on latest technology, cool R&D, good benefits

Cons

Lack of communication, execution is mediocre, lots of processes, politics getting more and more prevalent and right now the morale is not good, rumors flying about more layoffs, what will be said in the earnings calls, senior staff, board of directors etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Start running your groups like a business, reduce the number of directors and VPs, promote people that have accomplished something, think about your customers, get connected to the market and business. Let engineers build products, let the product teams composed of various groups make business decisions. Give more voice to marketing and product management.

Pros

They have a work from home program for eligible employees that can save gas, time and frustration by avoiding the commute. Your ability to utilize the program is dependent upon the sentiments of your manager. There are some who don't seem to understand the value of the program, but most do.

There are some very nice, hardworking and talented people there at Sun that makes working with the regular folks a pleasure. For those so inclined, there are some good opportunities to try new things and gain new experiences due to the constantly changing organization and lack of funding to hire outside resources.

Cons

Sun has been suffering since the internet bubble burst. Unfortunately the turnaround has been very slow with frequent layoffs since 2001 that continue to this day. That has led to a very depressing work environment. People are afraid of losing their jobs and as a consequence people agree to do whatever is asked of them, no matter how good or bad it may be.

The efforts at making a turn around have slowly led to a small profit. The layoffs continue but the work load doesn't seem to lessen. In fact, as the work force shrinks the work load increases. There have been no raises for the majority of workers over the last few years with only the top 10% of the employees seeing raises (depending on the organization's policy).

With the ongoing layoffs, lack of raises and work pressures, morale is very low. As can be imaged people are leaving on their own to escape the bad environment. Sun has had a great culture, but that has been nearly destroyed over the last several years.

Advice to Senior Management

Sun management has two main problems: First, they need to slow down the reorganizations so that the people can learn their roles and relationships and get good at them. They need to have some consistency with front line managers so that employees have a chance to learn their managers (and vice versa) so they can have a better chance of getting a fair revue and career development.

Secondly, Sun is barely scraping by with the current marketing plan that has us giving away the software. None of it's competitors do that, and they are all doing better than Sun. It doesn't appear to be a sustainable strategy for making money from customers, especially considering the inability of Sun to monetize the free software through services.

Pros

Sun has a lot of employee activities that you can join and the work place is casual. 15% discount on employee stock purchase plan - not that JAVA is that great anymore. Benefits are decent and salary isn't that bad. If you're lucky you might get a great manager and get a promotion. You interact with staffs from all over the world (India, Thailand)- that can be a positive thing. Some of the people here are very nice and helpful. Also you pretty much only work 40 hours a day - they never made me work over time.

Cons

Horrible management. I didn't see the right people get promoted. Chances are you work with or for idiots since good people don't want to work here anymore. Sun has some good products still but there is no good business plan. My team got reorg-ed 5-6 times. I'm glad I got out of this sinking boat. I didn't see people get promoted because they deserve it; it's all office politics here. Sun also struggled and is still struggling financially so bonuses never got paid out. Managers always talked about "development plan" but never followed up until a year later when you have to come up with a new one.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote people that deserve it.