IBM Reviews

Pros

Immense resources with some very talented people. There are tons of very interesting projects going on internally, many of which will eventually make it into products. In some respects, our intranet is a geek's dream playground.

Cons

Because it is such a large company, it is not the sort of place where you will move up through the ranks very quickly. Although it is not the IBM of the olden days, there is still very much a management hierarchy, and getting promoted to a people manager role takes time.
My biggest complaint would be around the company's sales strategy. There is a laser-like focus on the IBM "message," and as a result individual brands are not permitted to do their own advertising. The end result is a company with a set of great products that not one in the marketplace is aware of. It is very frustrating to see this as a sales rep, where you are selling products you can get excited about, but feel like you are being slowed down by IBM's own sales strategy.

Advice to Senior Management

Please reevaluate our marketing strategy!

Pros

Good work/life balance. Smart people on the technical side of IBM and IBM Microelectronics.

Cons

It's IBM. Not very responsive to the changing industry landscape. Does things the IBM way, even if there's no market for the product/service and/or customer will not pay for it.

Advice to Senior Management

Manage the division like a business, where IBM Systems Group is a customer. Don't manage the division like a captive supplier to IBM Systems Group with the OEM market as an afterthought. Invest in IP, partner with IP providers, invest in reference designs to enable ASIC customers. The market isn't willing to bring an idea to a chip company and wait for basic IP to be developed. Show leadership to your customers by investing in reference designs for particular end markets.

Pros

If you have one of the few good 1st lines an a decent 2nd line, you can be happy. But if your experience is like mine, 32 years, 23 managers, 2 great ones.

Cons

At this point, almost everything. Read the Pro's

Advice to Senior Management

Stop micromanaging your best people, Like gov't, you SHOULD get out of their way and let them do their job.

Pros

You work with very competent and knowledgeable peers. Great people.

Cons

IBM ignores all but the top 5% of the company when doling out promotions and compensation. Executives occupy space based on the Peter Principal. Managers are bureaucratic robots put in place to cull 10% of the population. This year it will be greater than 10% as more and more jobs are moved offshore. Was once the greatest place anyone could work, not anymore.

Advice to Senior Management

I managed at IBM for over 7 years so I know that a company runs on the efforts from all employees, not just the top 5%. More respect should be given to the top 90%. Remember, employees (and companies) fail due to poor management.

Pros

They promote extra-curricular activities to broaden your skills, have an excellent flexible work environment, and push you to improve yourself with challenging work. They support innovation and creativity in solutions. In addition, the building itself is neat, with relaxation areas, foosball and pool tables, lots of clubs, a gym, Tim Horton's, and other amenities. There are opportunities to move around, shadow other folks in different parts of the business, and a culture of sharing that, if leveraged well, can really help you to shine. They empower you to make decisions whether you're a student or a seasoned professional with many years of experience.

Cons

You often have to put in more than a standard 40 hour work week in order to meet your deliverables. With the present economic climate, they have a maniacal focus on cost savings so a lot of nice little perks are being cut, which impacts employee morale. It's better than losing your job, but it still isn't that nice when things like home internet, paid overtime, awards, external education, and a few other things that used to be covered by IBM no longer are.

Advice to Senior Management

None.

Pros

The cache of the employer name

Cons

Will not retool talented employees as technology is phased out

Advice to Senior Management

Value your employees more. IBM is letting go of very talented resources when they could be retooling the star performers for less than the cost of a new hire.

Pros

My opinion working at IBM is that you get to meet many different people and train on so many machines. The co-workers are great(most), manager is easy to talk to. Freedom of the job.

Cons

PAY,PAY and did I say PAY!!!! Upper management should be replaced like the CEO and immediate managers under him also. Employees use to mean something to the company but not any more! They continue to lay off people to help pad their bonuses. They want you to lie about certain things to make the numbers they need. No matter how good you are on repairing equipment or how satisfied the customers are with your work, IBM could care less. If they want to get bigger bonuses they will elt you go to achieve it.

Advice to Senior Management

QUIT!!!!!! Senior management needs to go. They are destroying a great company!

Pros

IBM still has a pretty good name so it is not a bad place to work for initial IT experience. The benefits (Vacation, 401k, Health Care, etc) are still good but seem to get worse every year.

Cons

Raises are few and far between at IBM even if you receive a satisfactory PBC rating. If you are lucky enough to get a raise it is only 2-3%. Very few people can make a career out of IBM now. I've seen many quality employees leave or be laid off to be replaced by lower paid employees with less experience.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more straight forward with the employees. Management seems to keep secrets regarding organizational changes, etc. from employees until the last minute.

Pros

Dynamic environment. Good people. Good corporate culture. Good benefits. Management treats employees with respect.

Cons

IBM Global Services in the U.S. is shrinking. Jobs are shifting to overseas. You may get caught in a downsizing.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your best people well.

Pros

IBM allows individual consultants to create their own individual career paths, and invests heavily in its employees' professional development

Cons

long hours, no such thing as balance between work and family, long hours traveling, spending considerable amount of time away from the family, IBM's bureaucracy and reporting process
ridiculous salary plans, the increasing job demands and lack of respect the corporation's executive leadership has for its workforce.

Advice to Senior Management

setting goals for professional development is impossible to achieve because you will be spending most of your time trying to achieve your goals but not making any kind of progress for the benefit of the company.