Engineering Manager • Current Employee
Pros: - Stable company that did not have large layoffs during the last 10 years.
- Depending on the organization you're in, the day-to-day work culture and ethics can be really great (immediate team, cross-team collaboration, management). But in another org, it can be completely opposite.
- OK work-life balance.
- Courses, trainings, and certifications are available for a wide variety of things in different areas (technologies and languages for engineering, methodologies for management, etc.).
- OK career growth.
- Also depending on the org, people management can be great for both engineers and managers: managers get training and mentorship from higher-ups, and engineers work in a healthy working environment with realistic goals and work standards, with opportunities to work on stuff they like and want, taking trainings, etc.
Cons: Compensation. This is the one biggest downside, and it has incredible impact. Let me describe it in bullet points:
* Whole corporation gets salary reviews and promotions once a year at the same time. There is no other way, no exceptions.
* The common average increase is 4%, regardless of the country (if your country has 10% inflation, too bad).
* Increase with promotion is 10% on average, with 14% being the largest increase I heard of.
* The only way to get someone more money is to take it from someone else. Performance of your team, organization, or business unit does not matter; everyone gets a salary increase budget of around 4%.
* Even if an employee shows outstanding performance, there is no way to compensate for it. The only thing they can do is get an offer from another company and try to negotiate with Oracle a 80% matching offer (I kid you not, Oracle never does a 100% match. It doesn't matter if you bring an offer with 1000 USD over your current salary or 100; Oracle will match up to 80%).
* The salary reviews can be randomly cancelled for the year.
This year, Oracle showed growth over what was planned, showing the best results in its history. Our business unit was above average corp-wide, our org was well above average in the business unit, and we still didn't get salary reviews and promotions. And there is no one you can address this to, because "the decision is made on the very top." But you will hear on every all-hands meeting how great we are performing, what wonderful talent we have, and how valued the people are.
The best way to get a good salary is to quit and be hired again in 6 months or a year.