Company: IBM
Date: 2016-11-17
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

A company run for shareholders first, second, third and fourth
Pros: At the practitioner level IBM can be a great company.  Colleagues are, on the whole, unusually smart, positive and helpful.  IBM sells to many of the world's biggest organisations so there are lots of interesting projects addressing genuine challenges.  I like my work, a lot.  Problem is I hate my job ( see below).
Cons: The company is run for Wall Street.  Executives will do incredibly harmful things to deliver shareholder value.  IBM spends far more buying back its own shares than it does on research.  Despite making big profits IBM has continuing layoffs (three rounds in 12 months) with the goal of shifting jobs to cheaper economies, such as India.  

The lack of investment means IBM has neglected the management of its staff.  Training is incredibly hard to get or reconcile with the targets that really matter.  The assessment and review process is terrible.  Unless you threaten to leave, or have just joined, it's almost impossible to get paid at market rates.

Customers are saddled with excessive rates and thus have expectations that are usually impossible to achieve on projects that depend on large numbers of scarcely trained Indians.