Oracle

Oracle has customers worldwide, so the work that you do impacts many people. This gives a huge satisfaction as a Software Developer. The work-life balance is great, where 5-6 hours of solid work is enough to get you through your daily tasks. I have not heard of any layoffs in Oracle's Application Development Unit, so the job security is great. Additionally, there are plenty of certified courses on their learning platform which range from Cloud, Java, AI, and many others, which would cost hundreds of dollars if done externally.

Salaries at Oracle are not standardized at all. Fresh college graduates will make more than you if you are a lateral entry joining after 1-2 years FTE. The main difference is in stocks. Tier 1 fresh graduates get around 50k USD in stocks, and if you join as an IC2 with 1-4 years of experience, you get 0. The salary disparity is huge, and as far as I have heard, the hike cycles are non-existent.

With regards to learning, as an Applications Developer at Oracle, you will work with internal tools like VBS and ADF, which are not widely used in the industry. These are low-code tools that require good problem-solving and debugging skills to master but do not require hands-on coding as such. Additionally, now they have also started 5 days WFO in most of the Hyderabad teams.

Hopefully, salaries are standardized in the future and increments are given to at least combat inflation.