I worked in Oracle and I was a senior manager. I stayed with Oracle for looong time, and the time came for me to leave. There are various challenges I had to take after this.
- Working odd hours: I used to switch between office and home due to remote location in Oracle. so, I had to work out of my time zone. But once I moved out, I found myself difficult to fit in my current time zone.
- Oracle specific tech: I was with Oracle for long time, had good background with Java and Oracle technologies. But the outside market demands are much more.
- Budgets: Even though I was a senior manager in Oracle, I never handled budget. Outside market demands manager to do budgeting. Till you don't handle cost, you will be still a developer. So, leadership in Oracle is mere title and is not useful in outside world.
- Networking: With most of my work being remote, I have lost contacts with my office people. I lost the personal touch and just more of work relationship. I miss them at right time of my requirement.
- Salary negotiation: I didn't look into market rates for a while. It's hard for me to negotiate. There are companies with good numbers and with bad. I was not prepared to handle the difference.
- Performance management: Believe this, Oracle doesn't handle this effectively. In real world most company still follows strictly documenting the process every year both for your reports and yourself.
I understand I should have jumped the boat much earlier.