QueryEntity Difference between = and includes

Hi,
We are experiencing the below behavior while using queryEntity.
The queryFilter with "=" operator is returning zero records whereas the filter with "includes" operator returns more records. We are using Oracle database, I ran the query with "=" and "like" operator and able to fetch records in both case.
a!queryFilter(
field:"department",
operator:"=",
value:"Engineering"
)


a!queryFilter(
field:"department",
operator:"includes",
value:"Engineering"
)
Any suggestions/comments are appreciated on this. Thanks!

OriginalPostID-240015