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Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

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Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#91
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…

I’m hiring Sr developers right across the street at Expedia. Shoot me a note: joholland at expedia.com

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#92
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass layoff decisions like this are typically made at a higher level of the organization. The executives don't give much advance notice to the middle managers who make hiring decisions for most engineers in order to prevent leaks.

hiring at oracle is weird. when i worked there my offer had to be approved by larry.

If Larry is approving hires it's just as a rubber stamp. There's no way anyone at the head of a company that size could think about anything at the employee level.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#93

A close family member of mine worked for Oracle as a mechanical engineer for 6 years. He had survived many rounds of layoffs at Sun before it was acquired by Oracle and at StorageTek before it was acquired by Sun. He described a depressing corporate culture at Oracle with a seemingly infinite number of middle managers. One of his co-workers spent most of his time in the office managing his real estate business. Larry…

What you're describing is general corporate culture after a company has experienced its hayday. Usually all the passionate people including original founders have cashed out, exited the company, and there is nobody left that actually cares about the company. There is a lot of room for mistakes and not delivering results because money grows on trees. People end up skating by and milking their one-hit-wonder cashcow pr…

I wonder what will sprout up in the ashes once Google goes further in that direction. Today the real tech companies are shining beacons of comparative competence but that can't last forever.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#94
post #50
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…

The VP also mentioned they were thinking about the plan in Jan. So why the hell did you hire me then? I joined at the end of Jan.

It is entirely plausible that they hired you so that they won't have to lay off someone they actually care about.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hiring at oracle is weird. when i worked there my offer had to be approved by larry.

If Larry is approving hires it's just as a rubber stamp. There's no way anyone at the head of a company that size could think about anything at the employee level.

Don't underestimate Larry. Not in this regard anyway.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#96
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd choose "none of the above".

Unless you've got a mortgage, young kids, a family member to take care of, or you like to eat consistently. I lot of people talk big about not taking those jobs, but those that actually follow through are extremely rare.

Sorry, but: This is nonsense. It's not like these are the only options, and you cannot get a comparable offer somewhere else.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an ethical perspective, Oracle is mean to tech (open source, buyouts and so on, mean licensing setups with companies). On the other hand, Google and Facebook seem to contribute more to tech while being absolutely vile to the general public. Cutesy yellow and green bicycles and thumbs up signs don't negate the societal harm these companies have done by vacuuming personal data and selling it at such scale. Then ag…

Higher Education, colleges and universities, are generally excellent work environments with excellent benefits. Depending on job, salary isn't always competitive with the tech sector though.

I work in higher ed. Salaries are nowhere near competitive. However, everyone I work with has opted for good work environment over money. Tends to lead to self-selection of nice people, even if they aren't "rockstars".

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#98
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.

Check your employment paperwork. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. To make you pay it back after just hiring is a jerk move, but not all executives are kind.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#99

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…

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’…

Oracle has somewhat of a monopoly due to its Micros acquisition. A hotel group upgrading their servers for some Opera products are given their choice for "servers": Windows 2008 R2, Windows 8 (yes, for servers) or let Oracle run it in Oracle Cloud.

Re: Oracle Swings the Layoff Axe

#100
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…

Pololee and pnloyd feel free to reach out. There are plenty of related jobs in seattle.
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