Company: IBM
Date: 2020-12-17
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Incredible culture & great people
Pros: I preface this by saying I have a fantastic manager and a very supportive team (IBM Cloud). I'm in the Austin design studio, which if you are in the US is probably where you want to be to get the most out of IBM's design culture. Experiences definitely vary based on your manager & your studio location.

Here are the Pros I can think of:
- I cannot say enough good things about the culture here. People are super smart and are willing to share their knowledge with you. The culture is very collaborative and growth / learning oriented. I see people getting promoted and getting awards regularly and they're not just empty gestures. If you did good, impactful work for IBM, and you have a good manager, then you will likely get some kind of recognition within your team and even across IBM design or your department. It's also a fun culture - e.g. our VP of design did a Tik Tok to promote Think2020 conference; the Austin studio (and other locations too) takes Halloween very seriously with a floor-wide theme, costume contest, and decked-out decorations. e.g. we transformed our space into a Stranger Things mall with food, booze, etc. Halloween is super fun and is really unique to IBM design culture. 

- Feedback is very valued. My team does pulse surveys I think every year or quarter (I forget) and takes feedback very seriously. They also have engagement pulse surveys across IBM Design, and I have seen managers taking action to improve the culture. 

- IBM is very design-mature (aka design is valued even outside design teams). Everyone I have collaborated with at least understands the well-structured Enterprise Design Thinking methodology or concepts, and I don't have to waste my energy trying to advocate for the importance of design. I've felt that as a designer I'm equally important as offering management (basically product management) & developer teams. The last aspect of design maturity is that user research is valued; we have dedicated research teams and actually do usability testing & interviews to inform our designs. This is unique to mature design companies like IBM.

- Great starting place for fresh grads or anyone who just pivoted to the design industry. They have a great design bootcamp where you learn hands-on how to apply IBM's Enterprise Design Thinking to real IBM projects, and it helps you get on the same baseline footing when starting out. There's a lot of good investment in ensuring new designers feel supported when first joining IBM.

- Free snacks in the Austin studio (better than none!) back when we were still going to the office.

- Access to anyone at IBM that you want to talk to! For example, if you want to chat with people who are experts in future-facing things like blockchain, AI/Watson, etc, VR/AR, quantum computing.... these experts are unique to IBM. Nobody's stopping you from talking to these people to learn more, and it helps that we have Slack to facilitate quicker communication.

- I'm not as involved in this stuff, but diversity & inclusion seems decent, though they are reluctant to release numbers. The good thing is that IBM Design is actively working on ways to improve these things; there is a diversity & inclusion committee and regular panel talks to address issues and encourage a more diverse IBM.
Cons: - No annual salary increases to adjust for inflation, which is a little ridiculous. Most companies - especially tech companies - do this. Starting salary is ok but since there's no increases, you're basically losing your worth as you gain more experience each year unless you get promoted.

- This is a relatively no frills company, even if you are in the Austin design studio. If you really value perks like fancy high rise offices, free lunch, super high salaries / bonuses / stock buybacks / etc. like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc., I'm not sure IBM is going to work for you. Unfortunately this is the tradeoff for a truly great culture, I guess. (I have heard less good things about the culture at those competitors with their fancy perks though.)

- Perf is weird, it's officially once a year but you can discuss at any time. Not a con per say, but it's 100% up to you though to drive these discussions and advocate for yourself with your manager (likely not unique to IBM though).

- Some time zone differences. For my particular team, many of the developers I work with are in China. We just meet once every 2 weeks, but this also makes collaboration and communication a bit harder. On the other hand it's kind of cool to work with people across the world. I also work with developers across the US in CA & NC. Not all teams are this distributed though.