IBM reviews

IBM Microelectronics is a microcosm of most large companies. It is very politically connected and without the right connections your career will quickly stagnate. As with most large companies, managers are there to get jobs done and it isn't until you get relatively high in management that most employees are trained for advancement. I can't emphasize enough, this is NOT the company to work for if you take your eye off your personal career development. If you treat your employment as a job and not a part of a carefully managed career trajectory management here will push you into jobs that are likely not in your best interest. As a large company there are many small tasks that tend to be very specialized to IBM, and getting stuck there will seriously stunt your career growth and prospects. As far as business is concerned, IBM overall has been consistently shipping jobs overseas and the morale in the company is terrible. Their US employee count has been diminishing, so if you treat your employment here as a "job" you are at serious risk of trouble when a Resource Action comes. You cannot count on IBM to support employees with retraining or reeducation now like they did when I first joined, and in general the more experienced you are the bigger the target you are if you're not in management.

Executive management team likes to micro-manage the business, which causes LOTS of extra and unnecessary workload. You spend a very large percentage of your time preparing for and giving status updates to senior management (often with technical details beyond their ability to understand). There are some very good technical people at IBM , but the management system is so oppressive and smothering that few creative ideas ever see the light of day. IBM works very, very hard at creating the ILLUSION of being a good employer, but it's actions show otherwise. Lots of companies have had to do lay-offs, but at least most of them have had the guts to publicly acknowledge the actions they are taking. IBM on the other hand prefers to surreptitiously do its lay-offs and off-shoring of jobs while keeping its employees in the dark.