Oracle

It's a big company, and it varies quite a bit by job/org, but...

• Great work environment, with lots of good people who are working hard.
• It's a good place to learn about the industry and your job role.
• Good benefits (insurance, 401(k), etc., are all fine).
• Lots of flexibility. Working from home is limited, but pretty common. Managers (mine in particular) don't micromanage.

Pay is flat out not competitive for most jobs. That's the reason why 50% of college graduate hires are gone after 18 months. Raises are tiny and not guaranteed. If you want to excel, go somewhere else.

Onboarding process is a joke. Most jobs have no training, because no one is in charge of training.

Along those lines, if it isn't assigned to someone, it doesn't get done. Oracle is like the former USSR—centrally planned, with only a chosen few making decisions, and endless bureaucracy for everyone else. It is the opposite of an empowering culture.

I get that the choice to pay people below market wages is deliberate. But your calculations are wrong—you're wasting money by having to replace people over and over. The longer people go with below market salaries, the more likely above-average talent is to leave. After a few years, the only people who are sure to still be there are the dead weight.

A company requires people who stay longer, more importantly, who want to stay longer. And that's the reason why some experienced candidates and new hires don't want to stay more than 18 months: a waste of time and effort, and a wastage of resources.

I myself was very enthusiastic when joining the company, but what an utter disappointment it was when I noticed the above-mentioned cons.