Oracle

• Software powerhouse, with an opportunity to work with various technologies.
• Stability and global diversification.
• Focus towards product and customers.
• Great sales team.
• Good employee benefits.
• Work-life balance (a good company to raise a family with).
• Management is usually supportive of lateral transitions within the groups (e.g., from Manager to individual contributor and vice-versa).
• Good gym.
• Has potential for growth.

One should always join the current firefight if one needs management attention. Oracle has plenty. Sound workers should have made the choice to stay on without being noticed or appreciated.

Technology-focused, management sees no value in professional degrees like MBAs or MS once you start working at Oracle. Though most managers will support the partial time-off required to do part-time studies.

Oracle does not tap into excellent social networks its employees are exposed to. This choice is partly due to stricter security standards.

There are plenty of re-orgs, and it can get pretty turbulent in some groups due to various acquisitions in the past and possibly in the future. So, if one is joining now, stay adaptive and embrace the change. You may see multiple managers in the coming years.

Value your 80% bottom workers, not just the top 20%. They are keeping the bottom line cost under control and giving predictable output.

When you distribute awards to the most visible person who manages to fight off escalation, also give awards to people who keep things under control.

Create more employee harmony and team events. Due to limited opportunities for growth, there is a lot of internal politics and back-biting among mid-managers or among people who are management hopefuls.

Due to acquisition-based innovation, the drive to write white papers, do something cool, and experiment is going away. Bring it back. When we are done buying everybody possible, it will be time to find internal ability to innovate.