IBM reviews

3.9

78% would recommend to a friend

(107,286 total reviews)
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Arvind Krishna

77% approve of CEO

68% positive business outlook

IBM has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 107,286 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The IBM employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Informationstechnologie industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

107K reviews
3.0
Feb 14, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you're just starting out in your career it can be a great place to network with a lot of people in your field. You can sample a lot of different job types just by talking to people. They have great mentors that are really helpful. You have to take the initiative to find a great mentor though. They have a lot of internal tools that can be very useful, they can also be a pain to learn since there are so many of them. Web 2.0 technologies are being adopted by IBM and there's definitely a lot of cutting edge stuff you can get involved in IF you join the right team. Good benefits and flexible work hours/location.

Cons

Upper management could care less about the low level employees. Layoffs will hit your department at least once every two years, if not more often. Good performance ratings won't save anyone either. If you don't want to be a small fish in a big pond then IBM will not be for you - nor will any large company. There's a lot of politics and processes that keep things from moving along. The day after laying off thousands of employees Sam will tell the president of the US that creating new "21st century jobs" is important and something that IBM is doing.

2.0
Feb 14, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cutting edge technology (CMOS H/W), very talented engineers, great and grand projects. There are some really smart people here; in the development teams, and in research. It's great to have a research team to help tackle really difficult problems. Also, generous vacation (though you can't always take it and you can't accumulate it), flexible work-at-home deals depending on your area. Decent initial salary.

Cons

Compensation is poor. Once you're in, raises are non-existent or really small. Same for bonuses. And that's for exemplary performers. Promotions are very rare, particularly for the technical team. Management is odd: 1st/2nd line managers spend most of their time trying to be "Project Managers", not too much focus actual management. There's a project management hierarchy that overlaps with these first lines, and adds little value ( though that might be the best career path). Zero training. Zero travel. Development projects are overbooked. IBM is really pushing off-shoring to India. You have to do your job, plus train a team of Indian developers; Middle management is pretty bad, they aim to please Sr management, customers, without consideration to their team. Sr Management reaps millions, off-shores, and lays technical people off ; their is not a good connection between the team and Sr Management. 7-10 levels of managers in between, too much.

2.0
Feb 13, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Solid sales team who can see any software how difficult to use it be. Easy Patent money. They spend boatloads on lawyers who will patent anything ( like a system for how should one queue to use the restrooms in a plane).

Cons

Bad management, competence does not get you too far. It is all about brownie points.

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