Working at Sun Microsystems — Reviews by Employees

According to a comment I overhear a group of IBM's. "Did you see the people for the Sun Microsystems Booth, they looked more like Hitler's Aryans nation. I also witnessed acts of discrimination that lead to management covering for their buddy. This A type of behavior included setting the Outsider up for failure, keeping standard flexible to keep each others support in place, thus contributed to their well devised downfall. And I was working there during the Good Days.

This is the worst job I've ever had. I have been passed up on open jobs because I have too much experience. Also, one of Sun's FAMOUS incompetent managers only wants 'girls' in the position. The job I do currently has 5 tools all doing the same thing however, you need all 5 to look for the same thing. If you can't find it in 4 hours you get yelled at by another incompetent manager. The entire company prides itself on a work life balance. However, since I've started here I've worked a few 60 hour weeks with no thanks and only complaints that I am taking OT. The company seems to be run by monkeys in every department besides engineering. Then the managers have the gall to wonder why the company has been sold to Oracle and if they will keep their jobs. These are the same legacy managers from StorageTek. Sun went down much the same way as StorageTek after it acquired the company. The company has NO idea how to sell it's technology after they come up with it and everyone wonders why... It's because the company let the sales force be driven by the same people that brought down StorageTek.

This place is a JOKE. I really hope Larry comes in here and cleans house because Sun has some great products and really bad managers.

They are gone now that Oracle is buying them. But for all its yakking about being an innovation leader, Sun had the absolute worst internal systems. Much of my time was spent cutting and pasting information from three different forecast/revenue systems into a spreadsheet, so my manager could send this to the VP! I was a $280K/year account manager, and wasted time on items like this!
You can thank the "pony-tailed" wonder for really making Sun a crappy place. The low-pay (compared to the industry) was compensated by stock option appreciation. 'Johan Schawatzen-hammer' drove the value of the stock down by 76%!! All of my non-restriced options were under water. My restricted options were worth a few hundred dollars - hardly a motivator.
Glad Larry will get the company and tear it into little pieces!

I came to Sun as part of the STK acquisition as a software engineer. Initially I was pretty pumped about working for Sun but that soon died off. The ego they portray to the outside is rampart on the inside. I have never worked with a group of engineers that 1) had to interest in helping you and 2) had any interest in producing a profitable product. This mentality extends down from the executive management. I attended an engineering function where the CEO spoke. When asked how Sun was going to make money the response, after filtering out all of the executive speak, was "If they use enough of our free software we're hoping they feel guilty and buy our over-priced hardware." Making money doesn't seem important, only doing "cool" stuff that has the obligatory Solaris and JAVA usage. If they were to do what IBM, i.e., go outside for a new CEO that'll destroy the culture, they'll have a chance.

To be fair, I work from home and am seldom in the Nashua office. One of the things I find odd about Sun offices is how quiet they are. You hardly ever (at least in my experience) hear chatter. Its as if nothing is happening or no one is there. Its also surprising how slow things move. Simple decisions take forever, it seems. But I think the pay is good and the benefits are good. I like what I'm doing and I get to work from home. I worry, however, about the next round of layoffs. I think its a given that there will continue to be layoffs until they turn this boat around.

Ok, so while I agree that some of the other reviewers make valid points (ie. managers who know nothing, politics, etc..) I have to say that I think Sun is a great place to work. Compared to other companies, the benefits are fantastic, the pay is ok and the work environment (especially work from home options) is superior. The company culture is a bit stodgy even with our pony-tailed Jonathon at the helm. The biggest downsides for me are 1) Career growth is limited unless you want to move to the Bay area (which I don't) and while development plans are somewhat encouraged follow-through is sometimes lacking. You really have to own your own career path and drive it. 2) I used to work at a company where I felt like I was the dumbest one there and I loved that. I don't feel that way here. Also, I think grammar & spelling have gone out the window. Maybe this is everyone but I certainly don't see the work ethic here that I've seen at other places. But to reiterate what others have said, if you want flexible hours, eat benefits, tuition reimbursement, work-from-home options, decent vacation, health club reimbursement, lactation rooms, etc... there's no place better.

The best way to describe Sun is with one word: insular. Sun lives in its' own dreamworld. A world in which JAVA and Solaris and ideally SPARC platforms will be the future foundation of global IT infrastructure including O/S, middleware, (virtualized) compute platform, storage (SAN and NAS).....A tall order to say the least.

The concept of a coherent and consistent business strategy is apparently foreign to Sun. They've been struggling to figure out a money-making strategy for over six years. The latest idea is to open source most everything and make money through some yet undefined business model. The CEO is quite articulate, blogs incessantly, and has even convinced some observers that he knows what he is doing, but he really does not seem to understand the operational aspects of running a large and profitable public company. Sun needs Mark Hurd's (HP CEO) clone.

Sun executives are almost always long term Sun veterans who only know one way to do things - the Sun way. So the impression one gets is that Sun is a clubby place for such people. Sun's business processes are bureaucratic and ponderous. It is really, really hard to get anything done at Sun. Engineering projects take 2-3x longer than they should. And very few ever make it to completion. The Sun Sales organization has gone thru reorg after reorg and leadership change after leadership change over the past few years. Sun HR is a joke. HR is more concerned with tending to executive cultivation than solving the issues impacting the average worker at Sun. Sun Marketing must be worst team in any >$1 billion company on the planet. Sun Operations used to share that title, but have been largely outsourced so they aren't all that bad.

While there are some pockets of great talent - and in a company as large as Sun there are certainly some good teams and good jobs - most people I know that left Sun (mostly engineers) are glad they did. The past few years have seen many, many thousands of workers being layed off. And there is a strong effort to outsource and offshore jobs to China, India and Russia. So there are always questions about whether your (US-based) job is really secure. The most recent layoff happened in September/October of this year. It appears that a few thousand more US colleagues rather quietly got let go.

On the bright side, Sun's compensation and benefits are pretty good although pressure from investors to acheive consistent profitability will probably continue to pressure salaries and benefits for the average worker (VP's and above will continue to do VERY well undoubtedly).

In summary, the B.S. that you have to put up with may not make it worth your while. If you have worked in other large US tech companies, be prepared for a real shock if you take a job at Sun.

Jeez, what a terrible company. A few great minds sprinkled in with a lot of idiots. Management lacks a spine because they lack knowledge. Most of the employees are either dumbasses, or very compotent jerks. Often times, they are both. Their outsourcing is a joke. Not because outsourcing is bad, but because they hire the most inexperienced or idiotic employees. It's not a cultural thing either. The employees from India AND France don't have a clue of what is going on. The only redeeming value is that you've got an office and not a cubicle. I'm am so out of here.

*Sun's pres is not leader * executive teams take outrageous bonuses while the worker bees have not had raises in 5 years * constant lay-offs *1-2-3 perforamce rating structure is not good or effective * differnet rules for those higher up the food chain * honesty is not promoted * courage to do the right thing is not promoted and more penalized * walkig hte talk is no longer a good thing * outsourcing thier IT has caused a self-inflicted cost prohibative state * not profitable even though they make 32 b a year * good executives are leaving, poor ones are left

Sun is the perfect place if you don\'t want to work. If you are an untechnical manager who needs to get ahead by playing politics instead of learning, Sun is the place to be. In the software division, every manager pats themselves on the back for a job well done despite putting out some horrible products. They often deflect blame instead of addressing the issues (Microsoft, bad sales, etc.). The managers do not listen to the right employees, but instead listen to Marketing or their talkative yet unqualified friends who they employ as engineers. It\'s maddeningly difficult to do the right thing. For example, there was a small problem that took 5 hours to fix, yet 3 managers discussed it for a solid year and a half before I could embark on this. Sun hires the wrong people, and the quality of employees gets lower and lower. Any good software engineer is forced to either endure the frustration involved with dealing with incompetent managers, or lower their work to lowest common demoninator to deal with the really badly qualified yet highly connected technical staff. Since many of the best and most ambitious have already left, the common demoninator just keeps getting lower and lower. However, if you are good, you can get your work done in 3 hours and leave early. If you\'re not good, you don\'t have to do work as you need to do is chat it up. My office is both nearly empty at both 9:00AM and 5:00PM.