Company: IBM
Date: 2016-01-05
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current

A War of Two Worlds
Pros: My manager (and team) are remarkably flexible. If someone needs to work from home, step out for an appointment, or just take care of something, he or she can do that, as long as stuff gets done and the team continues to move forward. I've personally had the chance to influence the direction of some pretty cool industry technology trends related to the IoT - which is pretty rewarding.
Cons: The company, as a whole, is bifurcated. There's very much the "old camp" which is where the majority of the profits are made (but declining). There's the new camp, which are our growth areas, but are not yet sustaining revenues that meet the demand of shareholders. Management (and employees) are stuck straddling the two. I've had the pleasure of working on "the new stuff" for most of my career, but the morale (or lack of it) is sometimes a drag. I'll often start working with someone from an external team, need them to focus on X for a few days to get something started, working, and complete, and very rarely am I able to just get stuff done. It often takes escalation. In addition, there seems to be a bit of a brain drain in certain areas; be wary of areas with a slow / steady attrition and few new hires. While these represent a great opportunity to step in and own something, they come (usually) with a tremendous amount of technical debt.