Company: IBM
Date: 2013-11-13
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Frustrated at IBM
Pros: IBM is a 100 year old titan with tremendous brand equity. I am a junior mid-career band 10 and the pay is good enough to keep you onboard...
Cons: but not bad enough to force you to look elsewhere. The frustration, for me and I'm sure for gen x and y, is that IBM is:

a) too slow in allowing career path suggestion, meaning progression is directly correlated with tenure, not skills...and opportunities to move around the company are harder than people describe, where you can have many "careers" at IBM, but given the current climate and internal controls, it's harder than ever;
b) too many managers, very top-heavy, with many IBM lifers that are very talented and senior, but expensive to carry on the P&L, thus weighing down the company. IBM is quick to cut the tens of thousands of long-time professionals, but very hesitant to cut the thousands of long-time senior managers;
c) our size is our strength but it's also killing us in a world of cloud, we are mired with legacy contract vehicles, sales force (40,000 expensive F2F sellers, vs. self-serve salesforce.com-like inside sales model), and technology (lotus notes?)....all this baggage doesn't allow the faster portions of the company (usually via acquisition) to sprint as strongly as needed to compete as the gold standard...we have lost that status