This is ask for all Directors and Executives who got impacted by Layoff.
I've been working in Oracle for 10+ years now and I am impacted by layoff. I don't regret the layoff. One question which was lingering in my mind was despite my honest day and night contributions to the project, I was not even considered for promotion or growth.
I had been exceeding expectations of my managers/executives and each time I raised my bar level and was able to meet it. At the end of focal cycle all I got was a 2% or 5% hike to maximum which was almost equivalent to lowest performer in my team.
I even attempted to jump to another project offering a senior role but was cut down by internal recruiters saying I can't move up in lateral jumps. The project seemed like a dead-end for me and I wasn't even allowed to move to another project which looks promising technology atleast but in vain.
What was the Ego which prevented you guys from helping your employees grow. Is it typical asian mindset ? to slave one person and extract everything ?
All I noticed was some monkey executive coming from external company (Infact he was less experienced than I was) and started controlling us. He doesn't even know half of the architecture I know about org. Is this the fate ?
12 replies (most recent on top)
@OP It is the Oracle Culture, No Promotions, No Focals (you were lucky with what you got as other LOBs got nothing) and no raises or market true-ups on salaries.
You know your worth right there, leadership says you have a great culture and felxibility.. how Oracle get on the best places to work is beyond me!!
This Rif is the best thing to happen, helped me move away from the toxic environment and find new opportunties.... hope you will see that for yourself as well
I consider this layoff as a blessing. Failed in all my attempts to grow inside Oracle. I am not alone. There are really excellent workers, super coders still waiting their promotion will happen one day. No managers even dare to look for promotion cycles to help their reports and it passes by every year.
The policies are sc--wed up. Company never grew organically. The sc--wed part is you can't grow in your team as well as move to another team for promotion. No wonder all these excellent workers slow down their contributions and become backseaters.
The only best thing executives have done so far is filling up their tummy with money Oracle provided and snoring. All the best for executives who just got laid off. Hope you will get good followers who can help in your next company. I think you all should look for retirement.
If you are white male 50 years old, that’s enough. Maybe it’s down to 40 now. When I got axed in 2014 (after 10 years) the Only promotions I saw were DEI or visa related. One day the truth will come out. Systemic ageist, s-xist disenfranchisement brought about FOR DECADES by the DEI grifters. The data is there.
@OP yes you cannot move in higher pos in lateral jump, thats why u join in same sal , with assurance salary will be revised later. 2% 5% is not for lowest performer, that is for exceed expectation. Discussion on promotion need to happen with manager with clear goal setting. Unfortunate if you indeed exceeded expectations and got fired. Personally i am consistently getting outstanding for last 4 yrs.
@a1 really ? 3 , 20% hikes? Huh.
I guess big foot and tupak is real.
Had directs at Oracle for years, spent time with them and figured out who the true stars were and who were fake knee pad kiss a$$ types pretty quick. Spent a lot of time documenting why the worker bees should get promoted. Person above me promoted/gave raises to those that catered to their ego. Wonderful...
Saw the writing on the wall, found a company that was more professional and never looked back.
No-one is keeping you at any job, you have to make the decision as an adult to move on. Or not
Having struggled with this nonsense for years let me tell you what happens.
I don't know if this is a deliberate policy or not but every year the requirements for promotions change and there are more and more pointless hoops to jump through. And TBH it's usually not been fully thought through or properly communicated
One requirement is to get several references from senior folks outside your team to support your proposal. But in some teams IC's don't have a lot of external exposure, so there are often no, or few, candidates to provide that input. So in the past I have asked a senior colleague to help me out and even provided the text for them to use. Clearly ridiculous, but that is what we are forced to do
Promotion cycle timings get moved every year so nobody knows what to aim for
Currently it's done once a year and they all go up for review by a bunch of VPs who have no idea who they are deciding to promote or not. I get that some managers will promote people too soon, and some will delay, but the VPs making these decisions simply have no idea about most of the candidates they are evaluating, what they contribute and how they compare. Has to be a better way.
Recently the directive came that for a once per year promo cycle we should aim for max 10% of the team.... thinking that through it means it's on average 10 years to get a promotion. Now that isn't entirely accurate as the higher you go the longer between promotions (in theory) but even taking that on board... it's not a high number.
Another aspect is the "no dry promotions" policy. My belief is that if you deserve a promo then you deserve a raise. The problem is if there is no focal cycle then there can be no promotions.... and these can build up to create a backlog.
So trust me - in many cases it isn't your manager holding you back, it's the sh**show above them preventing the timely submission of promotions.
@aa I would recommend you to apply for role of manager in Oracle, if you are convinced it is easy job and you will get all the many for doing nothing.
Isn't one of the required qualities for a manager is to fight for his employees ? If you are a coward and don't have voice of speech, you shouldn't be in that role. I have seen employees staying in same role for more than 13+ years without even slight promotion. Don't you think they are too much experienced in that role. Either you have to move them to top or move them to another project if you can't retain in same role/give growth.
I was doubting that Director's & VP's eat all the money which goes to his employees.
I remember each Director or VP has their favorite "Bride" engineer (usually a CMTS) who does nothing but just shadow the exec for meeting and just reword it in team meetings. These favorites doesn't do any work and eat the major portions of the money. They even don't know what coding or development process looks like. Mainly from some asian background. These lazy asian director's simply sit and eat doing nothing.
I don't blame managers in Oracle. Its just a dummy role inside Oracle without P&L responsibilities. M1 and M2 are just another PMTS but sitting and doing nothing but watch employees doing work and spend time in name of meetings. The real work horses are the PMTS (and rarely good CMTS in some teams).
How often you as a manager fought for your employee promotion or hike ?
What has prevented you from giving fruits of your work for your real trust worthy guy and not to your "bride".
Don't think it has anything to do with your manager ego. Managers simply do not have budget for any salary increase and HR is against the dry promotions. Your hike of 3% is aligned with your exceed expectations, since the rest of the team, who just meets expectations will not get anything.
Layoffs without regrets or remorse have been a thing for decades now. Don’t look for a rhyme or reason. Some finance guy has a spreadsheet that dictates that 1000 people need to go. They’ll find any reason to put you on the list just to get to that number. Any reason. They didn’t like your tie. Took too much time off (used against parents and caregivers). Picking every fifth name on the list. Literally ANYTHING.
(You see the same thought process in these highly illegal ICE arrests, where there is also a target to hit.)
Try not to take it too personally. I know that is difficult.
Pride. Some managers don’t allow you to move despite you doing everything possible and more. In my case, I got nothing for years until my manager changed and then I got three 20% pay hikes and RSU’s for three years in a row. Work stayed the same, just got paid more. Some guys are just di-ks.