Company: IBM
Date: 2017-11-15
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

11 years and still going strong
Pros: IBM has always had a good strong culture which has been the deep reasons why I'm still here today. When I joined back in 2007, I only thought I'd be around for 2 years before moving on to the next company to build my career. But before my 2 years was up, I was given a new opportunity and I reset my expectations to stay another year. Before that year was up, I was then given another exciting opportunity and I told myself I'd stay another year longer as the new role would help make me more marketable in my future role outside of IBM. Eleven years later, I'm still here because IBM has not just given me jobs, but they've given me a career with multiple opportunities for me to learn and succeed. With it has also come multiple opportunities to fail, but with those failures came understanding managers who helped by having my back and allowing me to learn from these failures with confidence and move forward.
Cons: Some of the downsides in working with IBM has been the usual complaints about bureaucracy and not doing enough for the employees. I honestly think that a lot of that can be found in other companies and  instead I think about everything else good that IBM has given it's employees which we often take for granted. For me, I think the biggest challenge IBM has given it's size and structure is that the messages from the top don't always come down as clearly as it can. So what might honestly be a motivating initiative and message from the top can come down hard as mandatory for compliance.