Company: IBM
Date: 2017-01-13
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

Average but improving
Pros: IBM is still a global powerhouse with a lot of opportunities if you can figure out how to navigate the bureaucracy.  I’m on the consulting side called Global Business Solutions, rather than the more famous innovation side called Global Technical Solutions.  As a consulting firm, they are about average.  You tend to work on small teams and get to know people in your cadre.  Those people are usually pretty good.  They have also figured out how to recruit from colleges and hire a lot of very bright college grads and still train them.  Most of the time, you are working with good people.  There is also lots of on-line training available.  On your own time, you can learn just about anything you want related to technology.  They have amazing resources available to all employees, if you can find them.
Senior management seems to be embracing actual change toward more modern business practices.  Performance ratings are a little less arbitrary than they used to be.  They are trying really hard to use agile methods in everything they do.  They seem to have discovered--and are taking seriously--customer satisfaction.
Cons: It is very difficult to find resources.  The benefits are continually reducing.  For example, they no long match 401(k) contributions with each paycheck.  They wait to see if you're still around at the end of the year and make a lump sum payment so they, not you, get the benefits of dollar-cost averaging.  People management is an extra duty assigned to someone who is being rewarded for doing something else.  Getting a helpful manager is luck-of the-draw (and the odds are no in your favor).  Finding your next assignment or developing your skills is entirely up to you.