IBM Reviews in Boston, MA Area

Pros

Being able to say that you work for IBM! There is a lot of prestige in working for such a big and popular company. The salaries are excellent, and the projects you get to work on are usually really cool.

Cons

It is very clicqy there. If you stick out in any way, good or bad, you are usually ostracized from most of your teammates. Management does a very poor job in promoting cross-team teamwork. If someone has information that you need, 9 times out of 10 they will not want to share it with you for fear of competition from their job.

Advice to Senior Management

Think more about your employees than just their rank and serial number in order to get a better performance out of them. If they ask for help, give it to them rather than tell them to figure it out themselves, especially if the person who you need to work with does not want to cooperate and their manager does nothing to help the problem.
Oh, and to the very high-ups, like the senior VPs and CEO, how about taking a few million dollars less in bonuses, and save some people's jobs. In this economy, people work a lot harder to keep their jobs, and I am sure that you will be viewed as heros instead of the heels we think you are now.

Pros

If you are a go-getter and pro-active about advancing your career, you will climb the ladder. A key to advancement is working cross team and with management several tiers above you. Most of the time you can pick your hours and work from home, extremely flexible.

Cons

There is so much entrenched bureaucracy, sometimes it makes you want to scream. There are definitely glass ceilings everywhere and you have to know how to break through them or sidestep them. Make sure to negotiate a good salary. Every person is different and has a different salary even if you are the same band level. IBM runs on strict margins, so money can be tight and even as a high performer you often wonder if you'll be cut in the next round of layoffs.

Advice to Senior Management

Let us breath between releases, there is no time to innovate!

Pros

Flexibility with hours and can work from home.

Tools to perform the job.

Cons

Lack of strong communication from management

Lack of job security

Advice to Senior Management

I recommend improving the passing of information down to employees regarding changes and developments.

Pros

Still a good place to work if you don't have your job off shored. Competitive pay and benefits and time off as needed.

Cons

Poor Management at all levels. No respect for technical talent. Layoffs affect US based employees making a decent wage and replace with cheap off short labor.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the technical talent, reduce level of management. Lower the compensation to executive and retaint the talent required to satisfy your customers before it's too late.

Pros

It's a paycheck.
Some first line managers are good and will save your hide.
Compensation is decent.

Cons

The company is focused completely on the bottom line. Experience isn't valued. Layoffs have no rhyme or reason, and often seem to be veiled attempts to offshore job functions, and are alarmingly frequent, even if a good year has happened. The bottom line has priority over product quality and customer satisfaction unless you're a premium customer or employee satisfaction.

If you have a decent first and second-line management, life can be tolerable.

Benefits and compensation are often spun as "in line with industry averages", implying that we're only average.

Advice to Senior Management

Have some respect for the people who get the job done to know how to get it done, and respect experience and knowledge above the cost of less expensive offshore alternatives.

Don't lie to your employees. Happy-happy-joy-joy sugar coated and spun e-mails about how wonderful things are, when clearly they're not, are insulting. This is especially true when followed by major resource actions.

Pros

Professional work place
The slackers were removed years ago
Good benefits

Cons

Less competitive compensation when compared to other players in the industry
Like most big companies - political
It's size limits it's nimbleness and ability to respond repidly to customers

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more attention to the front lines, the ones getting the deals done

Pros

My experience with IBM was both good and bad. The good part is that there are a lot of new positions to switch to. Many people who I worked with did this.

Cons

Here is the bad: I worked for a part of IBM that was being restructured. During the process, a corporate guy came to our office and told us what was going on. He gave the impression that there would be changes, but the changes that happened were much more significant that what he implied. After that, a few people I worked with at IBM moved to other parts of the company. Now, the place where I worked is significantly smaller.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more straightforward with employees. When a part of your company is being downsized, don't make people have to read between the lines to figure out what's going on.

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.

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.

Pros

Perhaps, IBM is more stable as an employer than most companies in this economic situation. Another pro is the work schedule flexibility.

Cons

The hard work is not recognized/rewarded unless an employee begs/demands recognition.

Advice to Senior Management

The management has to pay better attention to their top talent. Currently people are overloaded and overworked. This level of stress cannot be endured for too long. People work for money, not for meaningless praise.