Promotions, Raises, Bonuses, and Stock Options
Pros
If you're one of the rare individuals that a senior VP has taken a liking to you may do well with advancement within this company. It is possible and I've seen it happen. Case in point, an individual contributor was promoted directly into a director position, skipping 2 intermediary management roles and a nice salary increase to-boot. All this with zero prior management experience. For new hires, sign-on bonuses, stock option grants, and initial starting salaries can be pretty good too. Be advised to get what you can at this point because it will most likely be a long haul before anything further happens for you at this company.
Cons
Oracle has a very micro-management culture when it comes to raises and bonuses; line managers, senior managers, or even directors have no ability to give a salary increase, bonus, or any kind of equity stock grant. I'm not privy to the details here (and there is certainly no transparency about bonus allocations within the company) but I suspect any such funds are grabbed up by VP, SVP or higher levels all for themselves -- sort of like Congress giving themselves raises. As best I can tell, there is no HR oversight about salary adjustments. A high-performing, key-player type employee with a long record of Excellent performance reviews can go several years and probably their entire career at Oracle without a raise, bonus, or stock grant. Nothing, zilch, zero.
