Great place to work and advance at some cost. (nothing comes free anyways)
Pros
And endless scope and area to develop a person career. Unlike many competing company where career area available for changes and availability to do so. Many competing company do not have breadth and depth of areas to work on. For example.. if one wishes to pursue career in an another area, this company is where it will provide ypou options to learn and try different area. It is highly encourage to learn and explore. Where-as the competing companies make it difficult to move from one position to another with same company. IBM is like a min country within. Its upto an employee to make or break..most of the time.
Cons
The biggest one being is the salaries, they tend to be at 80% of the market level.. which for some is a significant gap. If IBM were to narrow this gap, then folks may stick around more.. but then there maynot be more position available. Other downside is, the company being so large, its like an elephant when it comes to responding to market needs/situation.
