The long haul at Oracle and lessons learned.
Pros
Tools Team can lead to interesting work sometimes. Good people. Good stepping stone job.
Cons
Hired at Market value but you fall behind and there is no reasonable path to catch up. Management (all the way up to my VP) were powerless and could do nothing to help even if they wanted to. I calculated my pay deficit over 21 years, assuming I was hired at market value, and compared what I could have made if I stayed at market value (for example, by jumping companies as soon as I fell behind) vs. what I actually made at Oracle. 21 years of starting at market that diminished to a 38% of market value resulted in a heart-breaking $1.8 million loss in pay. A hard lesson to learn. Long periods of stagnation in title/role, even when you perform at a higher level for years. I've been a PMTS for 14 years even though I've been performing at the next level the last 5-6 years. I averaged 12-16 hour days over 21 years.
