Company: IBM
Date: 2014-10-23
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

Bait & Switch Pros--Job descriptions are not as advertised.  Too many chiefs in S&D leadership
Pros: Quite a bit of great hardware and software products that you can access and learn to increase your skills.  If you can work independently, SWG, Lab Services, S&D, GBS, STG groups can be rewarding for those who like to get their technical expertise.

Learn the politics and find your contacts with the "real skills" to get things done.  Be visible about your accomplishments or others will take the credit.  If you are client facing, get enough technical knowledge "behind the story" to advise the client on how the client on how the technology will work in their environment.  Ask more than one person and get an understanding of what groups do and what IBM services are available to you or you will drown. Plenty of ways to "play with the technology" but you have to be a self-starter.
Cons: A lot of managers and executives who strategically place themselves at meetings and do nothing.  The famous "do you need help" is always communicated.  If you ask, they pass the buck and deflect.   

Everybody thinks they need to be at every meeting and most do their email after their 5-10 minute intro of themselves.  Backstabbers, bad-mouthing certain roles/people, ridiculous amounts of large presentations to tell the story with very little on the technology itself being the star.  Ridiculous amounts of admin overhead and internal meetings for nothing to "trick" senior executives that lower level managers and sales managers are working.  

The advancement opportunities are "fake".  Managers love to tell you to get certified, but most of the time you get nothing.  The managers get the kudos for their teams being certified not those going through certification.  Raises...what?!!???!!!  Industry certifications should be just acceptable and for client facing roles, more acceptable to allow for advancement

Too many people and roles stepping on one another in the S&D part of the world.  The client team is unnecessary overhead and too many sales executives most of which provide little to no value.  Too many of them don't really want to change and keep up with the times and not open to new ideas and innovations.