Company: IBM
Date: 2014-08-11
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

IBM Interactive Experience - Good talent, No support
Pros: Great experience working with talented mixed teams of creative and technical experts.  I have learned a lot about digital media projects, design for mobile first, and user experience based design.  I have worked with a lot of talented people and learned a lot.  IBM employees have access to a lot of great training opportunities to expand your skills (though you'll have to work on your own to find them through the various tools available).
Cons: You must be a self-starter, who is able to figure things out on your own, and you must be able to advocate and promote yourself and your successes.  There is little domain mentoring, and many team members report to managers outside of their domain / expertise.  Managers do little to nothing to advocate for their team members.  While the greater IBM does have clear paths for promotion (from a band / pay grade level perspective), career growth discussions with managers are relatively fruitless, and it is difficult to get their support in setting up a growth plan.  There is little advice / mentoring in what training to pursue to grow in your area, but if you are willing to do the digging and research yourself, there are really great tools and self-paced training available. Employees are often responsible for finding their own projects to be staffed to, as staffing team members are focused more on filling open project roles than getting benched team members into roles.