Company: IBM
Date: 2017-03-27
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

ibm
Pros: - Real engineers work on real problems for actual customers who use the products (as opposed to smaller companies that promise the world, but probably can't back up those promises)
- Dedication to creating good products and maintaining them
- Employees do have integrity regarding supporting customers, and with respect to protecting IBM's intellectual property and finances.
- IBM tends to be very clique oriented. If you are in a clique with power and financial support, then IBM can be a very good place to work.
Cons: - Very little education offered (lots of talk about education, but they don't actually pay for you to take classes)
- Very, very political environment. 
- Layoffs occur 2-4 times a year, impacting morale and increasing politically motivated behaviors. Low productivity employees were laid off years ago, so now decent employees are laid off
- outsourcing to india taking jobs from service organizations. you could train folks in india then lose your job
- Managers are big into CYA
- Lagging behind on cloud, containers, etc
- IBM no longer allows employees to work at home at all - this impacts IBM's claim to fame as promoting work/life balance and impacts working mothers. 
- IBM tends to be very clique oriented. If you are in a clique with power and financial support, then IBM can be a very good place to work. If are on the outside of the cliques with power, then you are completely out of all loops, and this lack of information impacts your ability to succeed.
- IBM grades on a curve and has quotas for performance review levels. If you are not part of a powerful clique, you can not get a high performance review. And this process discourages collaboration as employees are motivated to "look better" than their peers rather than support and encourage their peers. If you are in an "inner clique" you are only motivated to help others as long as you can take the credit for their work.