Tagging it #gold and #oraclegold
As I leave...my thoughts
Leaving Oracle after 17 years, my two cents.
The big shops, financials, SCM, HR, Psoft, will always make money. Usually never have layoffs unless it's from some quirky decision. Always tons of parnters doing that work if you do leave from one of those areas. Financials always needs people. Cloud seems to have failed. Just calling it what it is. AWS has everyone. You can get promoted in these big shops, but it's still oracle and will probably spend 3-5 years in your same position. Unless youre in marketing or HR and well, I will leave it at that.
GBU's..
I worked in one of them for five years and saw some concerning things happen. Tech people..you can grow and be promoted so as long you are a yes man, don't challenge too much and contribute. Growth is truly optional at many places in Oracle. The outside world somewhat sees Oracle techies as people who couldn't get into AWS MSFT GOOG. I would probably agree on this, but still lots of great people. Now, non-tech folks, business, project mgmt, product managers, CS. They don't seem to measure much of your skills or desire to grow or even your work performance. I sadly watched so many leave. Good people who well their mgr had it out for them or the manager was just actually cluless on how to grow people. The scarier thing I saw in the GBUs were managers who becamse such cause they were friends with officers or directors when the company they were in was acquired. I saw people just leapfrog GREAT candidates for so MANY jobs. It was really really sad. People who put their all into a job, then GBUX acquires company ABC and the ABC employees are some how vaulted into mgmt or director positions and the prior folks weren't given any consideration. It was so disheartening. As someone who came from Big Oracle, this type of promotion practice is nearly or maybe illegal. Again, many left. The GBU officers or SVP's I came in contact seem so out there. Most are just niche lifers on some product that no one cares about and I could never understood why they tried to act high and mighty. Saw it across several GBUs. I would say that if you're in the GBU, be careful of who is below you and above you. if one of them dont like you, your days could be numbered. Lately I had a few 20-30 year vets contact me suggesting their pink slip was right around the corner. It hasn't happened, but that is a very bad way to live. Can cause heart attacks. Also for the GBUs there is a good chance that if your product line is canceled, you're going to learn about it on the way out. Take Care.