Oracle

Senior engineers left over from the Sun days are very cool people, and some are famous in Unix lore of old. Good work-life balance; few deadlines; flexible hours and working from home.

I am a "software engineer," and maybe 50% of what I do is idiotic paperwork passed down from endless corporate departments and non-technical managers and PMs. One coworker says that's closer to 90% of the job.

Management is largely non-technical and has no idea what is going on at any given time. They don't even know what features are in the product. Your manager's opinion of you will have more to do with your presentation and first impressions than any technical ability or performance.

Raises have been nonexistent for 10 years.

So many coworkers work remotely that those in the office might as well be. There is likely no one relevant to talk to!

In my group, only new grads are hired (no one with experience), and furthermore, there are no technical interviews. So the average engineering talent is dropping. But it might not matter because so much of what we do is paperwork and attending meetings.

Cut the paperwork. Hire secretaries to do it. It's a false economy to make engineers spend, in some cases, 90% of their time on forms related to corporate compliance.