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Opower

Now known as Oracle

Is this your company?

From the best workplace to the worst. Thanks, Oracle! - Anonymous employee Opower Employee Review

1.0
Jul 16, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Opower has been a fabulous place to work for the past 3+ years, but the Oracle acquisition has ruined all of that in less than 3 months. If you join today, you'll get to work with some of the smart, interesting people that made Opower great. But act quickly, because they'll all be gone soon. - Free snacks, free massages, and free Friday lunches are still around - Good office locations: near Montgomery BART in San Francisco and Courthouse Metro in Arlington/D.C.

Cons

- Opower's best and brightest are fleeing in droves, while only the most mediocre, least experienced, or most ossified employees remain to welcome our corporate overlords. It's only going to get worse over the next few months. - Oracle people and policies are already changing the fast-paced, get-it-done, fun-loving culture of Opower. We're going from Google Apps to Oracle's crappy "Beehive" alternative, from unlimited PTO to 2 weeks, and from an office of motivated talent to an office where people apply to new jobs all day, if they come to work at all. - Oracle ensured that the most talented Opower employees will leave by lowballing the Oracle job offers: our same base salaries but with unclear bonus plans, no equity, no transportation or gym subsidy, a much longer annual review cycle/uncertain promotion potential, and no more unlimited PTO. So, significantly less total compensation. But hey, there's 401k match! :| - No more mission-driven culture. Oracle could care less about saving energy or creating a clean energy future: they literally said as much in our employee town hall. (Sorry, having compostable forks in the Oracle cafeteria isn't the same thing.)

Explore other reviews about Opower

5.0
Aug 30, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Everyone was friendly to work with. Surprisingly well run as a company.

Cons

Not sure how their culture has changed after being acquired by Oracle. Betting it was for the worse.

5.0
Feb 3, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Every day at Opower was inspiring - the people are smart, new ideas are always being brought to the table, and everyone is motivated to do their best work because the company is doing good things for the world. People take each other seriously at work but also have so much in common that you end up with many friends outside of the office, and those relationships range across all levels - I count my old manager as one of my closest friends and will always turn to some of the company's senior leadership for life and career advice.

Cons

Though things settled down a bit post-IPO, I'd still say work/life balance is tough at Opower. People work hard because they love what they do, but they're still working really, really hard. Also, the transition from one primary product line to multiple product lines has been rocky, particularly as oil prices have been tanking and screwing with the entire industry. As the energy world settles out so too will Opower, as long as they solidify their newer products.

21
avatar
Opower Response
10y
Thanks for your review and for being part of the Opower family for over 3 years!
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