Thread regarding Oracle Corp. layoffs

Oracle.......one of the worst companies run by the worst people on the planet.....like 25 years and counting. The best moment for me will be removing Oracle from my resume. Job was a pure joke. My mgmt....worst people on the planet. It's not the work, the customers, or the products...it's ORACLE MGMT. Period

Wow. 39 up votes. Yay me. hahahahahahah

Two years ago and still holds true. Edit...I worked for the GBU I was in for longer than 5 years. All still holds true. As I am starting a new job soon; I am thrilled to not have to deal with the human muck that are Oracle Mgmt. Esp my old GBU. They would be totally nothing at any other tech company. And no, I don't believe the talent at Oracle is the same as Amazon, Google, Apple, etc. Good luck to all that have survived the lasy two years. Expect the same the next 2, 10, 20, 100.

Spot on. Wasted the best year of my working life there. Working for absolutely incompetent robots. I think some still there. They could barely fill out excel sheets. Total garbage.

So true, same experience. Every good working person at Oracle deserves much better. Leave asap. Waiting would ki-l your career before you realize.

Spot on. I was a "lifer" for a while as well. I just recently went on and culled some of my old Oracle LinkedIn contacts I had worked with for lots of years. You know what I noticed? Not a single one was in a different role, got a promo, transitioned to a new group, no posts, no "Oracle" excitement. It very well could be the worst company to work for the last 30 years. I am so happy I left that life behind. It was literally su-king the life out of me and destroying my marriage and relationships with my children. Toxic place.

OP here. Agreed. Full transparency, I worked at Siemens Medical (later Cerner). When I saw oracle acquired Cerner, I truly came full circle. GBU mgmt….tons are not needed. What is sad is that the money they’re being paid could go to people who actually work. It always saddened me.

I can attest to this, as I experienced and witnessed it. I was pulled into the Cerner mess from Oracle and they made junior people Sr. Managers who cut non-Cerner people this last round. It’s a toxic environment and no one is safe. If you get unwillingly moved, consider it a sign.

If you had to do over would work at Oracle?

Yea, but I would have gotten out sooner. Inertia can affect the best of us. First couple of years were actually pretty good.

Yes, I would. I just would've been more determined about a few things. The technologies I wanted to learn, recognition of the people who actually were worth their salt, staying out of any political/friendship/popularity type situations. I would make sure that I defintely took ownership of projects/artifacts that I created from birth. In the GBU I ended up in, some people had zero issues stealing my work and claiming it as their own. One guy just flat out stole it, presented it to SVP and took the credit. The things I realize is the non-tech people are probably the biggest threat and also biggest opportunity for improvement. A lot I would change about how GBU's operate. The guy Mike who runs that side of the business, well, it's definitely a place for getting along with people to get the most out of your efforts.

If you had to do over would work at Oracle?

OP here....yes, anything can fail....I am just telling you when something like financials, SCM, Psoft, HRIS, OBIEE, and some others, literally need people with those skills today as they did 15-20 years ago, that's a good run to me. I am not going to wake up every day and be like, "oh, did financials get supplanted today?" Heck, I dont have exp with OBIEE or financials to a great extent, guess what my last 90% of openings related to Oracle sent to me are? And I am not talking like a one off, like 5-10 a week. I am actually saying this for the people in those areas. The GBU's, that's where software gets purchased-retread-replayed and then finally, usually replaced. is it right? No, but you have people, like a woman who was an SVP of a GBU I was at, her pure existence was to cheerlead every new acq or new edition like it was the second coming of...well you get it. That's mainly the GBU mgmt structure....you're lapping it up for the new kids on the block as what used to be the grand old man becomes the retired EOL man. And I won't lie, I am not an expert on any of these, but I recall succintly when I was in one of the GBU's and the customer couldn't use our product...he was sold it by smarmy sales guy who didn't do his DD but won a trip to Hawaii. The customer was eyeing Psoft. Psoft side gets wind and asked right there, what's the deal worth...It was huge for our GBU, about 3.5m. Psoft guy, "Pfft....we don't even talk about anything under 5-7mil. It gave me a huge window into who really is running Oracle and really, what customers really want out of Oracle. They don't need some 4th rate POS system or some archaic looking PM system. Cloud has tons of those. My two cents. Thanks for all the feedback.

What's the point of the statement that it failed then?

Whether it has failed yet or not is irrelevant. The OP says it can't fail. I'm saying it can, and probably will. Or possibly it is even failing as we speak. Couldn't tell you if it is or not, especially when its financials have been buried and kept under tighter security than the nuclear secrets in the Kremlin. But that is a pretty good indicator it isn't exactly a shining star in the sky. But the question isn't if it has failed, the question is that it cannot. It can and is quite capable of doing a swan dive into the ashheap of history.

Lots of critical things fail. Especially when it is done very poorly. For example, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failed and it was critical infrastructure. Oracle has a problem.

What's the point of the statement that it failed then? Failed in what? Overtaking AWS? Sure it failed. To control own infrastructure for own products and services - it succeeded.

Cloud cannot fail, it's a critical infrastructure at this point.

Lots of critical things fail. Especially when it is done very poorly. For example, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failed and it was critical infrastructure. Oracle has a problem.

Cloud cannot fail, it's a critical infrastructure at this point. You cannot be at mercy of your competition AWS to host your solution, they will just get critical insight into your product and get their own rival product and squeeze you out.

As someone that was acquired by Oracle I saw very few managers from my company leapfrog existing Oracle managers except in a couple cases where Oracle wanted to use our company's cloud experience in other areas. For the most part, groups in our company were put under Oracle managers who were in charge of the product ours replaced. They were not local and often had low opinions of our product and employees. Once Oracle bought us raises and promotions became harder.

I am sorry if I offended the one poster. I’m not saying there aren’t good people, but I also have worked with people at aws and Google and Microsoft directly. I don’t know how else to tell you that.

Best wishes to you and all your future endeavors.

I'm not a fan of Oracle either but you saying...

"The outside world somewhat sees Oracle techies as people who couldn't get into AWS MSFT GOOG. I would probably agree on this..."

is bullsh-t.

I've seen many of my friends leave Oracle for Amazon, Boeing, Apple, Google, etc. Also FYI Amazon will pay you more than Oracle, but they will also work you 3 to 4 times as hard and you will be on-call ALOT and will not get compensated for overtime. No company is perfect.

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.

This is a great post and thanks for sharing. It's a bunch of good insight and experience.

Good luck to you and visit us on these pages from time to time, I am sure we'll still be complaining about same things.