IBM Reviews in Boston, MA Area

Former Employee – worked at IBM full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good salary, very good benefits

Cons – Overworked, very stressful, on call weekends

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – We get both chilled and heated water for free. That's it.

Cons – In the summer of 2011 a decree was laid down that we all needed to be 'in the office 5 days a week'. I've been a top performer for 10 years and this came down even thought my manager and second line manager didn't agree. Morale is very low.

Advice to Senior Management – You beat Yahoo! to the punch, and have been losing talent ever since.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Corporate programs for work flexibility, benefits, good learning place for interns

Cons – Those corporate programs are not available to all, work load/targets are usually unrealistic, salary increases/bonus have not kept up with inflation for the last 10 years and show no signs of doing so going forward, no career progression in several areas after band 8 -- and the continual off shoring of jobs means you have no job security. Ratings are a quota system, not rating of performance. High level of employee burn-out under the current politics

Advice to Senior Management – LISTEN when we tell you what is feasible and what is not, treat employees as people instead of numbers on a spreadsheet, overhaul the rating and salary systems to actually rate people on their performance instead of a quota system and make sure salaries at least keep pace with inflation every year. Be honest and open about what is being done - in terms of work, methodologies, hiring, everything. Most of all, change the attitudes of management and executives to value employees instead of treating them as commodities

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Flexibility to work from home. Good medical, dental, and vision benefits. Plenty of vacation time and holidays. Discount on purchases of IBM stock. 401K matching. Some really great people.

Cons – IBM favors self-service so it is difficult to obtain IT help; they prefer to let you spend three days fighting to upgrade your computer than maintain an IT staff at each site to assist people. IBM also requires salespeople to do all of their administrative work (including preparing quotes, submitting orders, and even drafting legal contracts) themselves rather than providing administrative and legal support to assist salespeople so they can concentrate on selling.

Raises are extremely low or sometimes even non-existent; even taking over all of your manager's work when he leaves the company is not considered a reason to increase your pay. Resource actions occur regularly, and even obtaining the highest rating on your annual evaluation cannot save you from them. The higher your pay, the larger the target on your back at RA time.

The bureaucracy of such a large company is extremely frustrating, and heaven and earth must be moved and 39 approvals obtained to make an exception to "policy." In the past, IBM may have stood for "International Business Machines," "Identical Blue Men," and "I've Been Moved," but now I would say it stands for "Immense Bureaucratic Miser." A task that would have taken me 5 minutes at my last job will take me 5 days at IBM because I have to involve three other teams and seven different systems to get it done. In addition, many IBMers are quicker to respond, "That's not my job" than to help close a sale or resolve a customer issue.

Advice to Senior Management – Good administrative staff is as valuable as good developers-offer fair pay for the work performed. Don't let employees feel as though they have to choose between a competitive salary and a reasonable sense of job security. Don't expect a team to produce the same results when you force the manager to RA an employee every year but do not decrease the tasks for which the team is responsible.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Innovation and Work life balance is good here. One can afford to spend quality time with family when needed.

Cons – Slow paced, Bureaucratic, Not very clear management direction. Not enough growth opportunities

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Brand name. Difficult & challenging assignments: great "boot camp" for future opportunities

Cons – Workload increases constantly. Most of my peers and coworkers are constantly putting in 60-70 hour weeks just to keep up as well as giving up vacation time. We feel like we are being ground to bits at this pace. What used to be a work-life balance benefit (work from home) has turned into you-are-on-call-20hrs/day. I get the pressures of the current economy, but this is not sustainable.

Advice to Senior Management – Start asking us for our opinions again in meaningful ways. You need broad coverage from all demographics, not just the un-married 20 somethings.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – - Brand recognition
- Work with bright and talented engineers
- Flexible work hours

Cons – - Despite flexible hours expect to work long hours including nights and weekends.
- Performance reviews is totally broken, miniscule bonus and raise if any.
- Inept mgmt who are more people pushers than technically savy.
- Difficult to move around

Advice to Senior Management – - Performance review needs a major overhaul.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at IBM full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – - lots of divisions to move around
- lot of exposure to almost any area you want to work on

Cons – - Meritocracy is not valued
- you grow based on whom you know
- Many people just hide in their role for years (basically work without having the right skills, but keeping good relationship with decision makers)

Advice to Senior Management – - Remove the red tape in growth: good people will quit as they will take jobs elsewhere. Left on will be the politically successfull and the ones who stay hidden. Does not do good to business
- hire talent and keep it engaged

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM

Pros – competitive salary and benefits
flexible work arrangements
global opportunities
comprehensive work locations if located near a primary office (cafeterias, lounges, kitchens, etc)
solid results even in poor economy
stable company with good reputation
Volunteer opportunities and company support of them

Cons – high emphasis on outsourcing US jobs and training of your replacements
poor management execution of IBM values and processes
failure to reward technically skilled professionals (more advancement based on politics or popularity)
sneaky layoffs (resource actions) that are designed to avoid regulations and reporting requirements
technical work often focused on proprietary products that are not standards based, thus some knowledge is not highly valuable outside of company
management does not understand technical issues or complexity
too much management churn/movement
very limited accountability for managerial mistakes
too much finger pointing from management towards engineering
high emphasis on rewarding management and sales but low emphasis on rewarding engineering

Advice to Senior Management – Revise the entire yearly and mid-year rating system. More feedback from peers and less feedback from managers who don't even know the people being rated.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at IBM

Pros – Great Global Connections. Leader in the forefront on green technology. Professional coworkers. Great for working from home or in mobile offices.

Cons – The culture at IBM is to work all day everyday. If you were to close your laptop and leave around 5ish you would feel guilty. Project Managers from other departments create additional work for the understaffed finance departments. Professional movement up the ladder is bureaucratic at best and very tough to do deal with.

Advice to Senior Management – Finance should be competitively paid compared to how much work we put into the business. The general headcount turnout is a revolving door due to people being ground up, and finding life/work balances at other corporations.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend