Company: IBM
Date: 2020-05-16
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Either very good, or terrible company choice - no in between
Pros: It's impossible to provide a review that covers the whole of IBM since it's so vast. Also, every country has its own culture and peculiarities. IBM is pretty binary, people either tend to join and then leave again after a year or two, or they just stay on for the rest of their career. IBM certainly attracts a certain kind of people
— In the UK the benefits are eye-wateringly good, all made possible by the negotiating power and size of the organization. For example in the UK you can buy and sell holiday days, 25 days leave are standard, and the pension plan is amazing. Some people sell enough days to end up with a 6 or 7-week holiday
— There is a reason people with families stay so long, since IBM offers stable employment with great benefits and are really good with parental leave etc.
— IBM is a financially very solid company, with lots of money in the bank, and lots of resources
— You can do well if you just do everything that is asked of you. Stay compliant with everything, do everything that is asked of you, and you can get away with working there for a long time with minimal effort.
— If you have the right aptitude for "playing the game", you will last long and get ahead within the company
— Technically parts of their business is actually ahead of the curve and can be pretty exciting, there is some innovation, and opportunities to learn a lot of new things. However, you can't just do anything you like, you can only learn about the products and technology that relate to your group
— IBM is a very hierarchical organization, that moves at the speed of a supertanker. However, since it is so big this can also open up opportunities within IBM. You can rise slowly within the ranks, and go very far without ever changing employer. It is also possible to apply for jobs internally and even transfer to other countries
— There is a great culture for working remotely and often no requirement to come into an office on a regular basis even. Many IBMers leverage this by buying a house in a lower-cost area, work remotely from their house, and then get IBM to pay their expenses to travel to the office
— Successful people at IBM observe patterns to how the business moves, make a record of reoccurring events, since IBM can be very predictable in how it does things. Be good at this, know what is coming up next and use that to your advantage and you will "float" nicely within the organization
Cons: — IBM is a huge organization. You are a tiny part of a cog in a giant cogwheel.
— There is lots of red tape for everything. Literally everything.
— The key to success in IBM primarily relates to who you know within IBM, how well you network and "sell" yourself, and how well you get on with your manager. Do this well and you go far, fail to network or somehow fall out with your manager and you will be at a disadvantage. The manager you are assigned is always pot luck, you can be lucky and get a really good one who shields you from all the IBM process rubbish, or you get a bad one who does not care, micromanages or doesn't know how to get the best out of their team. In most companies this is not so much of an issue but in IBM it is - without good manager relations you won't got anywhere and it's sink or swim.
— They care more about trivial things not being done than what you do - it is always about process than anything else. Expect to hear nothing from anyone for a while, then suddenly get an email saying you have to go fill in some form that day and that it's suddenly very urgent.
— IBM are currently led by accountants - they have all the power in the organization and always call the shots. For better and for worse.
— IBM locations are usually in the middle of nowhere, grey, dreary, bit fuddy-duddy, barren and boring. People tend to be very formal, a lot of people wear suits, and most of their customers are banks and other boring large corporations. There is no free anything at IBM sites, not even coffee and few people if any work weekends or evenings (but many work flexible hours from home). 
— Expect a "tattletale" culture where if you have done something that is not liked or you haven't done something yet they won't ask you straight to your face but instead go straight to your manager, tell on you and report (or "escalate") you. A really charming culture. 
— A lot of people are always getting moved around a lot, going from one role to another, whereas others may have had the same role for the past 30 years, especially if they are technical
— In some parts of the business there is a yearly upheaval. Every January the business scrambles like crazy to get to grips with all the changes that are always imposed. The whole organization goes into a giant flux, which only crystallizes in February and continues until next January. People, roles, teams and whole business units get moved around and changed so you need to be resilient to constant change and be comfortable with uncertainty.
— Since everyone moves around so much you have to use your own initiative to get anywhere. Every January, expect a proportion of your colleagues to be gone - fired, resigned or moved to a different role and there is not much stability, with a very short yearly time-horizon
 — There is an almost bizarre Leader culture, with infrequent webcasts with presentations from Our Great Leaders, whom are normally uninspiring and seem more like the headmaster of your school than a leader of a multi-billion-dollar organisation
— IBM really takes the fun out of everything, and some people may feel it just slowly saps their life energy
— IBM is a self-service organization. It's like being at college again, no one tells you anything, no one does anythiung for youy. There are self-service tools for everything and to get ahead you really have to help yourself
— When joining IBM you are sucked into their universe and IBMers generally just care about the world inside IBM. It also hard to not become an IBMer, which really means people who have been institutionalized by working there for so long.
— If you are in sales/tech sales then you may want to watch out since the commission paid is at the discretion of the company. In tech sales you will normally receive a profit sharing payment on a quarterly basis, where the amount distributed to your manager depends on how well your part of the business has done. You are therefore held hostage to how others perform and you have no control over this. The amount that then gets assigned by the manager to each individual team member also depends on how good you are at convincing your manager of your value, since the amount distributed by your manager relies upon a subjective evaluation of how well you have performed that quarter. Again, this comes back to your rappor with your manager - if that is good then life will be good in IBM. If you are in pure sales the amount of commission paid to you is at the discretion of the company, backed up by a deliberately vague agreement called an IPL, which says that IBM can pay you some or all or no commission. This has been the subject of several recent lawsuits.