Company: IBM
Date: 2018-08-15
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Software Advisory
Pros: Company is changing a lot, employees get new mac books, HR is changing, even the tools are all changing. We have adopted Workday, Travis, GitHub, JFrog, etc.  

New employees get decent market salary. 

It's flexible and lay back unless you're in a hot project.

If you work in emerging technologies with teams that are using latest tech then IBM is definitely a fun place to work at. Our leader is very flexible and allows us to build things from the ground up and use any technology necessary for our solutions. I often get to develop tools and products from end to end.  (Disclaimer: I've only experienced this with my current manager/director and team. Most people in IBM aren't as lucky to have a leader like mine) 

The company is trying hard to get new blood who are passionate and talented but it's hard to keep them with the package they offer and specially the salary. 

If you are a new parent or are expecting, IBM would be perfect to work at. Like I said, it's very flexible and lay back. Most people work from home on Fridays and leave early when ever they need to. 

 IBM is also great for new hires! Most new hires last 2 - 3 years.
Cons: • Annual Bonus is nothing ($500 - $600 after tax)
• No stock options unless you are executive
• No annual increases even with excellent annual reviews (top performer)
• Hard to get a promotion unless you have a good manager that is respected and fights for you
• Some employees are really old school and outdated - they make it hard to innovate and work on new ideas. They are really outdated, some can't even code and aren't technical. It's really surprising that a  senior "technical" worker is not technical. Stay away from employees who have been in IBM for more than 6 years. A 10 year IBM employee is a huge red flag.
• Most employees lack drive and passion. They do the minimum. (hard to innovate)
• Not enough resources to kick off awesome projects
• POLITICS (specially from people who aren't technical and are all talk)
• I often feel like we develop demos and prototypes too often to make our managers, VPs and overall upper management happy and making them feel like we are doing awesome rather than focusing on building really good products. As long as the UI is beautiful, they don't seem to care.
• Managers and senior people always play the game... it's like if they have a play book. They don't try.