Sun Microsystems Reviews in San Francisco, CA Area

Pros

A track record of amazing contributions, a wide range of technologies and innumerable was to contribute. The mix of both hardware and software made Sun a very unique environment.

Cons

Very poor management in terms of communication. Goals were set haphazardly almost reckless. Unclear and unowned decision-making. No one wanted to be the one to say no, yet no one wanted to be the one to say yes. Sales force incentives needed to be set by profit, not by deal size.

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce the number of managers and layers between the workers and the VPs. Get the process under control. Never use the process as a substitution for decision making

Pros

innovation, transparency, smart people, incredible vision

Cons

sr management in an echo chamber, smart people not promoted

Advice to Senior Management

learn to listen instead of talk

Pros

I loved working at Sun, was always proud to call myself a Sun employee. Liked all of the projects I worked on, and got along with all of the people I worked with. Had good friends there, many of whom I stay in touch with.

Cons

Oracle took over and there was no way I wanted to be a part of that. Many of us heard about how Oracle treated their employees. Half of the people on my previous, and then current, teams left before the acquisition was finalized.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to the new management at Sun/Oracle is this: respect your employees, compensate them competitively, recognize good work, and above all show that you appreciate them. No self-respecting person really wants to work there.

Pros

pay is above average and people are very friendly.

Cons

not alot of postion in management

Advice to Senior Management

smart people.

Pros

Wealth of resources, telecommuting and flex office policy means you can work from anywhere, lots of opportunities for learning and taking on extra responsibilities.

Cons

The resources are burdened with bureaucracy, because so many people telecommute, the buildings feel ghostly and you never know where people are on a given day.

Advice to Senior Management

Not sure how things have changed since the Oracle acquisition, but quicker turn around times for inter department tasks would have been helpful.

Pros

independence and freedom to innovate

Cons

hard decision making when it come to direction

Advice to Senior Management

make the decision quickly and move on

Pros

Great technology. Great benefits.
A great place to learn state of the art technologies and techniques.

Cons

Small pawn in a lrge empire. Work often went unnoticed. There is a lot of excess brainpower walking the halls in search of a project to work on. Maybe too much time between projects because departments have too rigid boundaries.

Advice to Senior Management

Create more cross pollination of projects, technology and ideas.

Pros

The team of people are amazing and there was very strong team collaboration.

Cons

Heavy workloads as the company continued to downsize

Pros

Great pay, good people, fun

Cons

No opportunities for growth after 18 months there

Pros

Good salary, felt like a part of the company, great community to work with, very smart and open coworkers, lots of opportunity to learn.

Cons

Senior management led the company into the ground. Bad stock.

Advice to Senior Management

Should have developed x86 Solaris sooner. Should have charged for service support.