To be transparent, I am a white male American citizen. Considering how private most Americans treat salary information, I know almost nothing about how much my peers have been paid versus what I was paid at previous companies. I will say that I have heard of people making amounts of money that made me drool, and those people were across the whole range of color and gender. On the other hand, I have also known (very) junior developers who were grossly underpaid - multiple white males and I suspect their females and minority counterparts were underpaid as well.
It’s a problem, for sure. Racial income inequality is a problem and then there is the added problem that some of us just are not good at income negotiation and demanding fair or market pay. We trust the employer to give us what we deserve, when in reality, if the employer has a $120k upper limit on their hiring position, and you smile ear-to-ear at the first offer when they offer $90k; well, you just saved that company $30k per year.
That's what #talkpay tried to break. And to show I am not just talking, I tweeted mine years ago at https://twitter.com/chx/status/594598659150389248
However the company does seem to be in a large transition - and as a result we’re seeing some divisions starved out, while others are getting fat and carefree. The division I work in accounts for the lions share of “blessed revenue”, yet we’re starved for resources and people. You can’t back fill positions, and don’t even think about new headcount. So as attrition happens, the picture gets worse. While the sister division accounts for a tiny fraction of “blessed revenue” but they have what seems like unlimited resources and headcount.
The point is, your fortune at Oracle depends heavily on which division you work in, and whether or not Oracle wants your revenue. If your division is out of favor, Oracle wants your line of business to deplete through attrition - so no raises, no promotions, no new headcount and of course rif’s. If your division is appreciated - you see raises, promotions, new headcount etc.
As someone else pointed out, you can’t change divisions or positions and expect a pay raise. You can’t leave and come back and expect a pay raise. If you’re at oracle you can pretty much expect stagnant career and financial growth (unless you’re TK making terrible decisions and 35mm dollars).
I’m not surprised people at Oracle don’t make market pay. Or that other people systematically make more. I don’t think it has so much to do with gender though. They do systematically hire H1b’s though so that they can pay less and get that sweet sweet employee lock in.
Not only Oracle, it's very common practices. In my first job in the UK I worked for fin-tech. My salary on start for only 5k lower than a person who worked 20 years in IT and 13 years in this company. 14 months later I got 7k pay rise.
Is your choice to conflate "interns out of college" with "joiners" deliberate? Interns are a very special class of joiners and seeing them earn more than experienced professionals in similar roles is surprising, and is news - at least to me. Yuck.
Companies behave that way to _everyone_, get used to that. When you negotiate your salary, you have your mouth. Use it. You are the only person, who really cares, whether you earn adequately to what you bring to the table.