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Ask HN: Why does no one talk about working or interviewing for Oracle?

17 points by sdizdar 16y ago

I find it interesting that people here talk about the interview process and working at companies such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook, but I never hear about Oracle. Why is this? Is it the because databases and web servers are not cool anymore? Or maybe just because Oracle does not sell consumer products?

hasenj 16y ago
Oracle strikes me as exactly the kind of company where I never ever want to work in. They're enterprisey. They do boring stuff. They're evil. What's there to like? Why would I want to work for them?
- sdizdar 16y ago
  I would like to understand the following: Why do you think Oracle does boring stuff? For example, both Oracle and Google work hard to make very scalable and highly available systems - but somehow Oracle is boring while Google is exciting. You mention "they're evil". Why do you think Oracle is evil? Why do you think Oracle is more evil than Facebook, Apple, or Google?
  - coryl 16y ago
    "Boring" is as defined by the individual. After all, some people are thrilled by studying things considered boring by most people. But I would assume that for most in this case, boring means sameness. Most of us hear about new Google products and technology every day. What was the last Oracle innovation you heard about? Thus, we know far more about Google products and culture because they're interesting; they get written, published, and discussed.
    - sdizdar 16y ago
      These are good points. "What was the last Oracle innovation you heard about?" - that is very good question. It is hard to believe that company with $26B (4x more than Google) in sales has no innovation. Could it be that since oracle inventions are mainly in enterprise space and these technologies are not generally available to consumers, so they are never publicized not discussed in venues blogs and forums like this? You can only can see ad in WSJ and that is the end of the story.
  - hasenj 16y ago
    B2B space is boring. Enterprisey stuff is boring. You end up with a convoluted system that's designed to please a 1000 different costumers. Most of the problems you'd deal with are customer-specific, nothing interesting. System level stuff is interesting, what's boring is the enterprise. Why are they evil? Android law suit. Also maybe the fact they just rebrand RHEL and try to sell it. Granted, it is legal (due to the GPL), but it's still evil. They view open-source as an opportunity to leech technology for free and resell it after they rebrand it (and possible add proprietry extensions to it). Their CEO is quoted saying "if an open source product gets good enough, we'll simply take it. [...] So the great thing about open source is nobody owns it – a company like Oracle is free to take it for nothing, include it in our products and charge for support, and that's what we'll do."
    - runjake 16y ago
      What's so evil about using the GPL for exactly what it was intended for? And perhaps the reason Oracle lacks similar popularity with Google, is because Oracle is soul-crushing. Although some people might say the same about Google these days.
      - hasenj 16y ago
        RedHat does wonderful things for linux and open source, what Oracle is doing to RHEL is like bullying. Who'd want to work for such a company? Seriously. I don't care if Oracle's so called distro does any damage to RedHat or not, it's the fact that Oracle is pulling dirty moves like this; that's what makes me perceive the company as evil.
        mmaha 16y ago
        Oracle contributions to Linux: http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/linux/026042.htm http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/linux/026042.htm
    - barlo 16y ago
      Since when did Oracle sell OEL? They give it away for free. They sell support.
  - eitally 16y ago
    This is an astute post, but perhaps not for the reason you think. It's interesting that most people judge companies based on their executives rather than on the infantry and divisions doing the real work. That bugs me, because nearly every company has a few skeletons that can be illuminated while completely ignoring the great stuff they've done. Recidivism isn't 100%, especially in publicly traded companies.
iwr 16y ago
Once you JOIN Oracle, you have to abide by their referential constraints, otherwise the general employee database will TRIGGER a DELETE on your records.
javery 16y ago
Shame.
CyberFonic 16y ago
Ditto SAP, BEA, EMC, IBM, HP, CISCO, AVAYA, etc Maybe it's coz they don't hire hackers!
- sdizdar 16y ago
  True (btw, BEA is ORCL now). What is definition of hacker in this context? Web 2.0 / javascript developer? Or self-learned developer?
  - CyberFonic 16y ago
    A hacker is like an artist. Someone who gets satisfaction out of creating something. Anyone who enjoys learning new stuff. When it's just a J.O.B. and there's no passion, then it is not hacking. Many people programming in large corporations are not interested in challenging themselves with new stuff. Their biggest challenge is getting through another dreary day and not going postal on the pointy headed boss.