Company: IBM
Date: 2020-04-30
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Super place to work with some strange quirks
Pros: The people on the ground floor and upwards of two levels of management (at least) are generally intelligent, kind and want to see you succeed. It may go further up the ladder but I don't get to meet too many more senior execs. Many people are the best in their fields worldwide, but they are mostly unintimidating - there's a friendliness and collaborative approach here that I've not met in any other company to the same extent. There's a belief that everyone has a voice, and everyone's voice is important.

Working from home is a given, and has made the current virus lockdown a pretty seamless transition. Personally, my ideal week would be 3 days in the office, and 2 days at home, so I'm finding it a bit claustrophobic to spend all this time at home. But hey, needs must.

Hursley is a nice site, and if you're that way inclined, has great fitness and social facilities. It's a bit off the beaten track though, and doesn't boast some of the facilities it once had (I understand that there used to be an onsite bank!).

There's lots of stuff to do (and they encourage you to do) outside the day job, and the place has an upbeat, campus vibe which is refreshingly different to the subterranean sweatshops at which I've worked in London and other places.
Cons: A couple of quirky inconveniences. Would you believe it - at Hursley, you have to pay for coffee! First job in 20 years where I've had to pay for coffee. And the coffee shop is an outsourced profit centre, so even just 1 cup a day can end up costing you £300-£400 a year. Sure there are kitchens where you can make your own but it's up to you to bring everything in - there are no free bean-to-cup machines on the site. Or even free milk.

Secondly, you get a great choice of personal laptops (pretty well-specced Thinkpads or Macbooks) but the rest of your fit-out (chairs, external monitors etc) is pretty random and there's no such thing as a 'standard' set of kit. My own workspace looks as though it's been cobbled together following a visit to a household waste recycling centre.

There appear to be no small discretionary budgets at all. It would be extremely arduous to get, say, a new monitor or even to buy a book that would directly help with your work (... to be fair, everyone has access to a Safari online subscription). 

Finally, it's too early to tell for me (nearly 2 years in) but you get the sense that annual pay increments are underwhelming. Also, it's not London, so don't expect London salaries. So the advice is to do your due diligence and negotiate a correspondingly great starting package if you want to work here and remain motivated.