Oracle Software Engineer reviews

The title pretty much says it all. It looks like after one gets hired, one's salary is pretty much fixed no matter how great their performance is. This year (2012), I was among a lucky few to get about 2% raise. However, the bonus fund was rumored to be just 2.5%, so pretty much nobody got any bonus this summer. Sometimes I have a feeling that there is an implicit contract between the workforce and the management, like "you don't overpay, we don't overwork". Perhaps it's an ideal place to be when you are close to retirement, but not if you are relatively young and ambitious. Also, one less obvious downside of such a "socialist economy" is that it seems to be resistant to changes/improvements. If you are creative, the lack of pressure from the management may actually help you to invent something - but once you try to promote that thing, add it to some product, etc., you may well feel (mostly silent) resistance and eventually get nowhere. It looks like even a minor cross-team technical advance is impossible unless there is some Vice President who decides to drive the whole thing. So overall, I am rather skeptical about the future of this company or whether I want to be here in 2 or 3 years. But for now, I'd like to enjoy the benefits of the no-pressure environment a little more ;-)

- Low salary + Low morale = Inferior product quality - Management is always right. Individual contributors get burned for their incompetency. - CEO