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Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

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Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#81

Post by tuesdayrain »

nate_meurer wrote: post #75
kettlecorn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oracle will only give interviews to people with a degree from their small list of Ivy-tier universities. I cannot imagine that a company with a healthy culture could allow such a boneheaded policy to persist.

I agree, not healthy. You know what's more fucked up? Not long after I joined, just after the Sun acquisition, I learned that my previous company was dissolving, and I handed a dozen resumes to my then-director (different director from the one in my other comment; this was a guy who's no longer with Oracle). I don't take referrals lightly, because my reputation is at stake too. In this case, most of my former colleag…

> Of the three white guys I referred, two were hired. How's that for unhealthy?

I feel like you're trying to turn this into a race or gender issue when that isn't necessarily relevant. Like your boss said, maybe he really does just prefer to hire Americans and the race/gender is irrelevant to him.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#82

Post by milemi »

Twirrim wrote: post #46
alexeldeib wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think Oracle has a chance at cloud? Honest question. Their competition at the low end is Google, which doesn’t bode great on quality, and with AWS and Azure they’re fighting on quality and against strong enterprise groups. Not sure who would predict that would go well, but it’s a big market and I suppose they have to try. I’ve seen Oracle cloud jobs and admittedly balked, no bone to pick with them but don’…

> Why do you think Oracle has a chance at cloud? Honest question. Because Oracle still has an extremely large customer base, and an exceptionally good and extensive sales organisation that's really good at selling stuff to people. The enterprise market is still not that well tapped by existing cloud providers. Look at the kinds of sales figures enterprise serving companies pull in, and consider that only a smaller fr…

I feel so old because to me OCI means Oracle Call Interface, their DB client C API. I guess nobody cares that it may confuse people like me.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#83

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

kplex wrote: post #39

Who is actually spending money on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure? Is it just organisations who are too deep into the Oracle ecosystem to go anywhere else?

The government. The government has been funding Oracle from the start, and it's never stopped. Who do you think the NSA and CIA use for all of their data storage and warehousing? It was the FBI that started this mess, and it's the rest of the government that continues it. Ellison often comes off as untouchable in this stories, and that's because he is. He made it possible for the spooks to build "Echelon" 30 years ago. God knows what that's morphed into now. He's a hero to them.

Yes, I'm being purposely sardonic, but only a little.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#84

Post by tinyhouse »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #20
anti_milestone2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new cloud infrastructure group is kind of hidden gem. Its very different than the rest of Oracle. It started in Seattle about 4 years ago and is like 40% ex Amazon and 40% ex Microsoft. They also pay very well, because Oracle doesn't have a great reputation. The work is good, with a TON of room for growth and leadership. The goal is ambitious (take on the big players) and well funded. The people are good. Worklif…

I went through the recruitment process for a cloud role in their Bristol, UK office. It was bizarre. I was video interviewed by 3 of their people around Europe, but none seemed to have an idea of what they were trying to do or crucially what they wanted me to do. The people I spoke to were technically proficient, but not driven in the same way you'd imagine a FAANG employee to be. I eventually gave up after the proce…

Don't know about Oracle, but in many big companies and especially FAANG, the people interviewing you usually have no idea what you're going to work on or what the team is working on. It's usually only the hiring manager who can give you such info. There are so many people and teams in every organization, and the people who interview you are usually people with the right skills that happen to be available in the time slots you provided. It's usually not the people you will work with.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#85

Post by nate_meurer »

tuesdayrain wrote: post #81
nate_meurer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, not healthy. You know what's more fucked up? Not long after I joined, just after the Sun acquisition, I learned that my previous company was dissolving, and I handed a dozen resumes to my then-director (different director from the one in my other comment; this was a guy who's no longer with Oracle). I don't take referrals lightly, because my reputation is at stake too. In this case, most of my former colleag…

> Of the three white guys I referred, two were hired. How's that for unhealthy? I feel like you're trying to turn this into a race or gender issue when that isn't necessarily relevant. Like your boss said, maybe he really does just prefer to hire Americans and the race/gender is irrelevant to him.

Yeah, no. One of the guys I referred had a green card, been here for years, started a family here. He has an Indian name, but he's as American as I am.

Didn't matter. Boss wouldn't consider him.

Edit:

What you said is a reasonable proposition. Nationalism and racism can be distinct from one another. But in this case, given the treatment of my green-card bearing friend and the tone of the brief discussions I had with the boss, it seemed clear to me that some amount of outright racism was at work.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#86

Post by 0x0000000 »

Oracle's M.O. is to be very quiet about these things. Same day notification, no heads-up. Over at thelayoff, where you do have to take everything with a grain of salt, users suggest they structure the layoffs specifically to avoid WARN laws.

They reportedly laid off hundreds of employees via robocall within the last couple years: https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3016768/oracle-engineer...

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#87

Post by jacques_chester »

Twirrim wrote: post #46
alexeldeib wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think Oracle has a chance at cloud? Honest question. Their competition at the low end is Google, which doesn’t bode great on quality, and with AWS and Azure they’re fighting on quality and against strong enterprise groups. Not sure who would predict that would go well, but it’s a big market and I suppose they have to try. I’ve seen Oracle cloud jobs and admittedly balked, no bone to pick with them but don’…

> Why do you think Oracle has a chance at cloud? Honest question. Because Oracle still has an extremely large customer base, and an exceptionally good and extensive sales organisation that's really good at selling stuff to people. The enterprise market is still not that well tapped by existing cloud providers. Look at the kinds of sales figures enterprise serving companies pull in, and consider that only a smaller fr…

Microsoft has a good and extensive sales organisation too. AWS has a massive head start. VMWare have a pretty solid lock in on-prem. And while all three have pissed in their customer's wells, none of them has poisoned customer wells quite so consistently and thoroughly as Oracle has for the past few decades.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#88

Post by raincom »

nate_meurer wrote: post #75
kettlecorn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oracle will only give interviews to people with a degree from their small list of Ivy-tier universities. I cannot imagine that a company with a healthy culture could allow such a boneheaded policy to persist.

I agree, not healthy. You know what's more fucked up? Not long after I joined, just after the Sun acquisition, I learned that my previous company was dissolving, and I handed a dozen resumes to my then-director (different director from the one in my other comment; this was a guy who's no longer with Oracle). I don't take referrals lightly, because my reputation is at stake too. In this case, most of my former colleag…

I thought Oracle likes H1-B folks. Even Dept of Labor filed a lawsuit against Oracle alleging that Oracle underpays H1B employees.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#89

Post by jacques_chester »

philwelch wrote: post #41
samstave wrote: post #2

I wouldnt be able to say why anyone would want to be working at oracle these days. What compelling reason does oracle even have to attract talent? (Im not being snide, seeious questions)

According to rumor--lots and lots of cash.

I'm aware of at least one person who was a millionaire on Google RSUs in 2014 who got hired away by Oracle.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#90

Post by luckydata »

pololee wrote: post #47

I was one of the people being let go in this round. I moved to Seattle and joined OCI as a Senior Engineer at the end of Jan 2019. Yesterday when I came to the office and was doing my work at 9:00 AM, the whole team about 20 people were called by VP to have a meeting at 10:00 AM. He said the whole team got terminated. We had to turn in the computer by 12:00 PM and leave the office by 3:00 PM. There was no buffer time…

That's complete bullshit, hiring bonuses don't have to be repaid if they terminate you for any reason. They were trying to make you feel like the manager went to bat for you, which isn't the case.
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