IBM reviews

3.9

78% would recommend to a friend

(107,219 total reviews)
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Arvind Krishna

76% approve of CEO

68% positive business outlook

IBM has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 107,219 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
1.0
Oct 28, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Learning new technologies that are in development or are ready to hit the market.

Cons

If you want to get overworked, unpaid and under appreciated, this is the place you want to be. I have never seen management try to cut corners to save a buck than I have in the Systems and Technology Group. And not to mention the sheer incompetence of team leads not making an effort in order to distribute accurate and correct test plans in order to complete necessary projects on time. Once the project does reach it's completion date, there is no appreciation expressed for the hard work or overtime spent in order to meet project deadlines by management. It's off to the races to try and complete the next disaster of a project that you're assigned.

4.0
Oct 28, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

For a large company with over 330,000 employees, IBM does many things right as an employer. They pay competitively and have a solid benefits package. They have a great internal training program for things like management and project management. They delegate much of the human resources (HR) responsibilities to the first-line managers, so that key HR decisions are being made by those with the most knowledge about the employee instead of by HR representatives who couldn't pick the employee out of a line-up. They have a strong mentoring program (people who say they don't have a strong mentoring program probably weren't willing to put in the effort and time necessary to make those mentoring relationships fruitful). IBM is large enough that employees can have multiple careers without ever changing companies or having to rollover their 401k.

Cons

Anytime there is a large number of people, communications become harder. Project managers or engineers might think about the number of communication channels, which is n(n-1)/2 where n = number of stakeholders (Ref: PMBOK, 3rd ed.). For 330,000 employees, that means IBM has 54.4 billion communication channels. Obviously that is difficult to manage and work within. Recognizing that there is an inherent challenge in the liquidity of knowledge and information can help employees find ways to solve those problems, such as developing wikis for small teams. The other downside to having that many employees means that every time the company spends $3 on each employee, you just spent $1 million. Many employees don't understand this problem, and instead complain about only receiving free ice cream in the cafeteria after project milestone is reached when their cousin at the unprofitable, but well funded, start-up is getting free coffee and soda every day.

5.0
Oct 28, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of opportunity for growth - Very diverse organization Great flexibility for work/life balance Key is getting a good manager - Having a poor manager can make your life hell Very intelligent people - Industry leaders in many key areas

Cons

Too big - Difficult to get things done. Never enough funding to do things right. Remote workforce is challenging - you rarely get to meet the folks you work with Many American jobs moving overseas - Discouraging to see very talented American colleagues losing their jobs

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