Main image of article Rumors of Oracle Layoffs Highlight Company's Position in Cloud Race

Will Oracle lay off thousands of workers?

That’s the rumor circulating at the moment, thanks to a July article in The Information that suggested the enterprise IT giant could slice away thousands of jobs as soon as August. The cuts could supposedly impact multiple divisions.

CRN added that two high-level executives, CMO Ariel Kelman and SVP Juergen Lindner, recently departed the company, as well. Linder handled marketing for SaaS, one of Oracle’s key areas of focus as it attempts to compete with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other tech giants for cloud customers.

And make no mistake about it: Oracle faces an uphill battle when it comes to convincing technologists to adopt its cloud. Not only do AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud claim a far larger share of the cloud-infrastructure market—but as the most recent Stack Overflow Developer Survey makes clear, technologists greatly prefer those platforms to Oracle’s offerings. Oracle notched a huge win when it took on TikTok as a cloud client, but it needs to build a much larger portfolio if it wants to keep AWS and Microsoft executives awake at night.

If you do land a technologist position at Oracle, though, the salaries and compensation are definitely competitive with the rest of the industry, particularly if you have an in-demand skill such as cloud architecture. According to crowdsourced data from levels.fyi, Oracle more than matches enterprise-centric rivals such as SAP when it comes to stock payouts, as well. (Even if you have no interest in working for Oracle, it can sometimes pay to keep an eye on the certifications they offer, since many companies have Oracle products as part of their tech stack.)

With the evolution of the cloud, the fortunes of various technology companies can pivot quickly. Oracle is attempting a broad transformation as fast as it can—but will it be fast enough? At least it’s not alone in terms of adjusting its workforce: Google, Microsoft, Apple, and other tech giants have all recently announced hiring slowdowns or freezes.