Company: IBM
Date: 2016-04-06
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

Career opportunities
Pros: You can decide and drive toward your goals. It is much more easier if your group/organization use the traditional reporting structure (eg: a direct report). It is helpful if your manager is truly interested in talent development. Unlike many years ago where this is the second primary objective of a manager. IBM does offer and provide ample opportunities to work in different disciplines, technologies and teams. Many these opportunities depends on your own effort to network with other IBMers, skills/knowledge set brings to the table, and most critical is timing.
Cons: Majority of the organization does not provide sufficient education/training. Although there is a requirement for employees to at least has 40 hours every year. Unfortunately, IBMer offer most of  education/training on-line for free (eg: no cost to the dept and approval) but you have to do it on your own time. That means if you are in a position to provide billable hours (eg: service), then you are most likely need to satisfy the billable quota first before anything else (as it will be a direct measurement of your performance). Which means you need to divide up the rest of your free time to vacation and education. (It is usually harder for IBMers with many years with the company as they earned more vacations time as it is already hard to meet the billing quota.)  Opportunities are more suitable for younger employees with less personal/family constraints. In addition from my personal observation, it seems like IBM wants to turn over older US employees in favor of younger one abroad.