IBM reviews

In recent years things changed drastically at IBM. Upper management doesn't really care about their employees anymore. There are a ton of projects that are completely under staffed. It is now official IBM strategy to finish projects in a much shorter time with a lot less employees. Even if people work insane hours and have no life anymore in order to meet a deadline, there really isn't much recognition. There is also not much room for innovation and improvement of designs because of extremely tight schedules. Also, because of a stupid rating system, it can happen that someone who consistently screws things up, but is in a leadership position and fulfills several other criteria gets promoted while someone who meets all deadlines and delivers high quality work could get a bad rating. In recent years a lot of people got promoted to STSM (Senior Technical Staff Member) and DE (Distinguished Engineer), so now IBM is completely top heavy. Where before you could lead a small team as an advisory or senior engineer, now you pretty much have to be an STSM or higher. There is simply no room to grow anymore. And even if there is a possibility to lead a team or get promoted, that just results in more responsibility and longer hours, but financially it is simply not worth it! I talk to a lot of IBMers in other divisions as well, and it seems like the climate is very bad everywhere. Even people from outside of IBM who know people at IBM are constantly telling me this. IBM has billions of dollars in cash and makes a ton of profit, but every time we are told that it was an extremely bad quarter. So raises and bonuses are ridiculously small. And just to make this clear, I am not complaining about my salary, I just don't like how IBM is treating their employees! Also, we constantly have people quitting in our area, and they almost never get replaced. Even worse, when very senior engineers are leaving, IBM does almost nothing to try to keep them from leaving.

The only reason IBM is doing well right now is because budgets are being slashed left and right, employee morale is at an all time low and management (if you're unlucky) can be quite condescending and non responsive to employee needs. Keeping the staff happy is nowhere on the priority list. People are often expected to work extra long hours and weekends without any particular compensation, reward or acknowledgment. And the expectation isn't reflected in a request to come in but rather by assigning large amounts of work that don't actually make sense given a "normal" work day.