IBM Reviews in Denver, CO Area

Pros

IBM offers incredible career development opportunities. As a global company I had the benefit of traveling to international locations for work and regularly work with global colleagues. In addition to career development the work life balance is fairly good given how competitive the technology marketplace is.

Cons

Like many large organization there is a fair amount of bureaucracy that gets in the way of doing the actual work that I enjoy. I would say that this is necessary to manage and control such a large enterprise. The scale and resources, however, far outweigh the occasional headache from a tedious process.

Advice to Senior Management

I would encourage IBM leaders to provide regular feedback to their employees and help their employees to shape their work to meet their long term career goals. My manager was excellent at this and I am very grateful for her desire to help me succeed in my career.

Pros

Solid, well-recognized company with decent benefits. Definitely a large variety of positions and experiences available and most employees (US-based) work from home, so there is reasonable flexibility.

Cons

Working from home makes it very tricky to have any kind of personal relationship with colleagues. IBM continues to layoff US-based workers without any notice, whatsoever...Morale is just terrible. Amazing to see people who have 30+ years in with the company still work 16+ hour days when they are fearful (daily) that they won't have a job tomorrow.

Advice to Senior Management

Do a better job of having--and communicating--a plan for reducing the size of the workforce. Having people on eggshells every single day is terribly unproductive. Concommittantly, compensate the people that you do have left; do make them pick up the work their terminated co-workers used to do without providing improved compensation.

Pros

Potential for very dynamic job assignments, always learning something new and exciting. There is a great feeling of just being associated with IBM, but over time, that fades. Management can often be really good, but its not always the case. People generally are highly motivated both personally and corporately

Cons

Management - be careful of your leadership. That can be your biggest hero or your worst enemy. Due to political nature, if things don't go well on an assignment, management will find someone to blame - it could be you. Beware of undocumented promises from management. At IBM, if it isn't in writing, it was never said. Oh, and by a huge measure, raises suck or are non-existent. Lots of raises go through lengthy 'dry spells'

Advice to Senior Management

Support your people above all else. Give them what they need to be successful, and if they need more tools, training, etc - cough it up. Don't make promises that you are unwilling to backup - it destroys your credibility

Pros

You get to work from home, and you some what get to managed your own time. Some of the coworkers are nice to work with.

Cons

Caviat: this is a huge organization, so I can only speak about the one group that I was working with.

You have no control over your working hours: One day you could be working from 6am - 6pm and three days later you could be working from 6pm - 6am. You constantly working over the weekends and holidays.

You only get paid if you get paged: They could assign you to work 56hrs as backup on call for the week, but you will only get paid if you get paged. So it is possible that you will not get paid for the whole week, even if you are responsible for responding to any pages within 15 minutes.

You will be spending 50% or more of your time doing paper work.

You will be responsible for figuring out how to migrate among the huge bureaucracy and get the right permission to get things done. It is your fault if you didn't get the right permission.

Their internal documentation and information sharing system (email, ticketing, calendar...) is arcane and hard to use.

Some people will assumed you know everything, even if it is not documented anywhere; or nobody has told you.

Lots of laid off without any notice. They gave a whole bunch of us the option of either moving to Dubuque, Iowa -- with out moving expenses -- or get laid off.

Wages are like third world country.

Advice to Senior Management

Not sure if anything would matters, since from what I saw this is IBM normal business practice.
They took advantage of the bad economies and treated people like trash. They are slowly replacing IBM US with IBM India personels.

Perhaps something constructive like: treat people better, or at least pretend that you cared.

Either improve Lotus Notes, or get better tools so people can get their work done more efficiently.

Implement work flow like other 20th centuries companies so the technical people don't have to waste their time doing paper work or migrating through the huge bureaucracy to get one simple things done.

Pros

Very flexible in working remotely from home for many positions - just be aware that that sooner or later your job / position will be off-shored to a cheaper 3rd world country, no matter how great of performer you are or how dedicated you might be.

This is a good company for any fresh-out-of-school job hunter that wants to gain some standard 21st corporate world experience. The pay is not bad for the fresh-out-of-school job hunter. For more experienced workers however, IBM is very limited. Executive management's not-so-secret agenda is to layoff as many "high priced" USA-based employees (and in other developed countries) and off-shore everything possible to the 3rd world. Any gaps are theoretically back-filled with the "layoffees" as contractors, assuming they can't find work elsewhere.

Cons

IBM is not a place where job hunters should apply if they are seeking long term employment.or stabilitry. One day an IBM employee may come into work as he/she has done for the past 20+ years and be taken into the manager's office to be told their position is being Resource Actioned (IBM does not like to use the words "Laid Off"). The soon to be EX Employee will then be required to stick around for the next 30 days. This 30 dats period is so the soon to be EX Employee will have tyhe privilage to train their India Replacement staff member. Once the 30 days is past and the training is complete the EX Employee will no longer be needed and will be thrown out like yesterday's garbage.

You'll have lots of exposure to different technologies at IBM. Unfortunately, a lot of what's forced on you is either proprietary, obscure, or rapidly vanishing outside the world of IBM (think Lotus Word Pro, Lotus Notes, Domino, etc). Many US-based jobs at IBM are "tenuous", so the workplace feels a lot like dining under the Sword of Damocles. Since your co-workers know that the end could come at any moment, and their survival depends upon how well they rank compared to you, the result is reduced information flow/share, cooperation, participation, and general workplace camaraderie among your co-workers.

On the subject of "how you rank", the PBC system (performance reviews) at IBM is a TOTAL FARCE. It's basically a random system of ranking by the managers. Worse yet, you usually already have a performance number assigned before the evaluations ever begin -- based on who the manager's favorite employees are, how many people in the dept the execs said will need to be laid off in the next year, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

If all of the work that IBM does can be done with cheaper labor and cheaper office space in 3rd World countries, does that mean that eventually IBM Headquarters will be moved to India or perhaps Samuel J. Palmisano's job is going to be off-shored to Pakistan ?? Just wondering. "IBM - MADE EVERYWHERE BUT THE US".

Pros

All of the best reasons to work at IBM are gone. They used to have great benefits. Management used to care (somewhat) about their employees.

I have heard the stories from IBM-ers who worked for IBM starting in the 1960s. All of them say that it's not IBM any more. It is an empty shell of what it used to be. Outsourcing has turned a once-great computer manufacturer into a services-only based business.

Cons

Education is why I left IBM. I was set to take a Masters Degree, and asked my Manager if there would be any time considerations for my education. The manager said 'no.' Now mind you, I had given IBM hours of free overtime to the tune of 18 hour workdays very often in order to fulfill client needs and meet deadlines.

The manager was adamant, he absolutely would give me NO TIME CONSIDERATION for a Masters Degree. IBM *used* to brag about how they supported employees' educational pursuits by paying for schooling. PSHAW.

They stopped paying for low-class employees' educations in 2001, after 9-11-2001. Then, they stopped paying for Team Leads' education in 2003-2004. They might still pay if you are a manager or Sr. Manager, but now their former boast rings hollow.

Anyhow, I quit IBM in order to take my degree and finished in the top of the class. I will only go back to IBM if all other opportunities dry up for me. IBM is like one of the Pyramids in Egypt. There was once greatness there, but all that is left are archaeological ruins. And, the ruins are not great wonders of the world, they are just ruins of a once-great business that had values.

Advice to Senior Management

Bring back the greatness. Care for your dedicated employees and they, in turn, will care for you. Loyalty works BOTH ways.

Pros

Wide array of learning opportunities depending on your position. Having one of the largest client bases of any company on the planet, you will get a significant amount of experience in a short amount of time (once again, dependent on your role). The higher level architecture resources (on the technical side) are a dream to work with and a fountain of knowledge from which to draw, and some of the middle management is also passionate and will work hard on your behalf in building not just a better business, but a better career path.

One area where IBM does exceed is in their telecommuting policies. Hands down one of the most organized large companies in managing work from home (a good portion of the company does so).

Cons

Almost the exact opposite of the Pros listed above, strangely enough. If you're in the Microsoft competency, expect to be the "red headed stepchild" of the organization. Big Blue is slow to move, and slow to react - and even moreso with products not their own. Be prepared for an uphill battle, depending on how forward thinking you are. Also be ready to be considered expendable, at the drop of a hat, if you're not in a niche field. Contractor hourly reductions are commonplace (upwards of 10-15% per week), including overtime restrictions (with the expectation you maintain client visibilty anyway), with pay cuts an occasional happening (can see between 5-10% wage cuts with little to no notice).

Travel policy is prohibitive, and needlessly so, with no per diem offered. Flying into a major metropolitan area? No more than $47 (at the high end) per DAY for meals. Not per meal - but per DAY. Get used to the hot dog vendors and fast food - maybe if you're friendly enough you can eek out a free soda!

Turnover of quality resources, including some of the "lifers", is VERY high currently. In order to satisfy the investor need for growth, IBM is cutting it's own lifelines by performing "resource actions" on quality employees. This leads to decreased morale, productivity and poor communication across the board. Work suffers for fear of losing their job to a cost center...who will generally do it half as well, if at all. This is more a worry for fulltime employees than contractors. For the moment at least. If you're an existing contractor, or looking to be come one? Stay that way. The benefits, once the best in the industry, are no longer worth it.

Advice to Senior Management

Less growth and performance based bonus system. Remove the lackey promotion rewarding process and put the focus back on merit and performance. Slim down middle and senior management, as well as project managers. There's about 6-7 "managers and project team members" for every 1 competent technical resource. That's not a joke - and for a technology company known for its expertise, is also a major problem.

In short, take your own advice. Start building a better planet...not for management, but for your employees, vendors, and most of all, your clients. You'll be better off for it in the long term.

Pros

Provides an array of project types to work on
Peers are generally very good to work with
Benefits are solid
Opportunity to transfer outside of consulting

Cons

Few partners value people as much as they should
Staffing in locations is out-of-sync (sending too many people cross-country)
Travel and expense and reward policies are too cheap

Advice to Senior Management

Do a credible and consistent job of showing your employees you value them through your actions
Develop more flexible project staffing models to enable less cross-country travel
Don't sweat the small stuff so much (travel and expenses)

Pros

Ability to move up in the company. Very honest company to work for and dedicated to strict behavioral rules.

Cons

Due to economic conditions, periodic layoffs were necessary.

Advice to Senior Management

Good leadership.

Pros

Great Benefits
Travel
Exposure to different Fortune 500 Clients
Variety of work

Cons

Lack of management caring to place you in a field of your interest
Travel
Always someone around with more experience, less opportunity to take on new responsibilities
Little new of year feedback
Manager do not know employees

Advice to Senior Management

Managers should take time to get to know employees more. Management should take yearly reviews and goal setting more seriously.