Company: IBM
Date: 2016-12-13
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Advisory Software Engineer
Pros: Many different technology areas to work in.  Global company - lots of interaction with engineers all over the world. Friendly, fun, hard-working co-workers. You can find an expert at IBM on just about any technological topic.
Cons: Managers and architects make competing demands on the engineers and neither takes "no" for an answer. Too much time spent planning and determining what to work on, and negotiating priorities. If you push back on the demands from the architect, because of commitments already made to managers, or vice versa, they meet and decide that the problem is not them, it is you.  You learn to carefully navigate these types of discussions by not making commitments to anyone and also not saying no, but only giving vague answers that are not 'yes' or 'no'.

An overall sense of dread permeates the company since AWS and Azure and other Cloud companies destroyed IBM's hardware/storage business.  The previous CEO's "Roadmap" plans to reward shareholders ended up gutting the company while the industry's move to the Cloud caught IBM off guard.  IBM is still trying to recover from this and honestly maybe will never truly recover.

Constant cost-cutting through cuts to perks, cuts to benefits, and regular layoffs has created a toxic environment. For example, many years ago they took away the free coffee to cut costs.  It wasn't even that good of coffee, but nevertheless, they decided that money is better passed on to shareholders.  (Contrast this with Google and other tech companies, and it is questionable whether IBM is able to attract new talent at all).

I left the company because I just could not take it anymore.  It became a miserable place to work.