IBM reviews

IBM Corporate has no clue how to truly get long term value from research. As others have posted, research is high-risk high-reward, but in the past years IBM is only concerned with quarterly bottom lines. IBM Researchers are constantly bombarded with inappropriate projects just to help immediate revenue. Over the years IBM Research has seen a lot of turn over as many researchers leave for academic or industry positions due to the degradation of the value of true research. As such, management at IBM Research is slowly being filled with more 'corporate' minded employees. IBM Corporate simultaneously wants to tap IBM Research for immediate boosts to revenue and also expects game-changing products. They fail to see that the former will impact the latter, and as others have posted, do not understand that Research needs to be insulated to make long term dramatic impact. Morale at IBM Research is at a near all time low. IBM Research does not value their researchers and the message you infer is that you should simply be grateful for the opportunity to work at IBM research. Compensation, benefits, and perks are constantly being reduced and eroded. The building itself is abysmal. Bleak, no windows in offices, dirty, musty, ancient office equipment (unless you are IBM Corporate, they have all the nice offices and meeting rooms). For a tech company that is attracting top researchers and tech people it is truly sad that one has to beg and plead for the most basic needs (monitor for laptop, mouse, stapler, ...). The current problems at IBM Research mostly impact the new Research Staff members and Postdoctoral Researchers. Old employees have learned to insulate themselves better from IBM Corporate, but new employees are at their mercy. From experience I know researchers at IBM used to have 25%-50% of their time free for their own research. Going in to my job I expected this, but this delusion was quickly shattered. New researchers are expected to work on IBM dictated projects or research directions. I was made to feel guilty for working on personal research (which was still oriented along our general research lines). Again, the impression you get is they can always higher new top talent because of their reputation. So, accept it or leave. But the prestige of working at IBM Research is falling rapidly. For those looking for a dynamic and agile work place, IBM Research is just the opposite. Mostly this is simply due to the sheer size of IBM. But the remaining fault lies with the culture at IBM. It is slow and stale, and the often infuriating part is many IBMers think the opposite. Compounding this, IBM Research (and IBM Corporate) as a demographic is older. Not that this is a problem, but one should be aware if they are young, energetic, and bright-eyed, this is not the place for you. Lastly, the software, tools, and support one is forced to use at IBM (looking at you Lotus Notes) is atrocious and often wastes an inordinate amount of time to do things that should be simple and straightforward. IBM Research is on the decline. They are coasting on their (deserved) reputation as a leading industry research lab. Those days are gone. Morale is low, people are leaving, the wrong people are staying, and sadly management actually does know about the problem yet seems unwilling or incapable of fixing the it. IBM Research is moving to a place where they do not value their employees yet expect them to be grateful to simply work for IBM. Pockets of true old-school IBM Research groups still exist, mainly in the math group, but those are being squeezed out. That is why you still see (and rightly so) positive reviews of IBM Research. But as a whole, IBM Research is spiraling down the drain. Sadly, I believe in 10-15 years it will be a shell of what it used to be. They are losing their real talent and what made them special, and can only ride on their reputation for so long. Most likely the remaining talent will be divided into the profitable non-research divisions and it will be no more.

IBM only cares about earnings per share. Don't for a second believe that any of their core values or social responsibility, work-life etc policies will apply to you if you work there! There is a reason that IBM is highest profit IT services company but doesn't appear in any "best company to work for" list. In order to be on top of 80% of your work, you'ill put in 10 to 14 hrs/day in my region. 100% on top of things means an extra 6 to 8 hours on the weekend. To be proactive on more than a few of the totally critical issues, you'll spend 14+ hrs of the weekend working. Thie critical projects/tasks you work on will be totally under-resourced so you can't take leave as if you miss delivery date it will be career limiting. Then you'll be told that you haven't take your leave by year end so you will lose the leave - not get paid out or anyuthing, it just disappears! So you will delay leave in order to deliver for IBM, you'll be exhausted, lose your social life, be stressed to breaking point so that you can be recognised and move up, but instead your efforts will be unrecognised in any meaningful way, and your leave will be taken away when you need it most. ...and it's getting worse because IBM's new belief is that the cheapest resource is best resource, so when an experienced colleague leaves, they are replaced with the cheapest option. Fine to train up new people on your team, but when *every* new person is a totally new to the workplace, their role and IBM, and doesn't stay long as there is no increase... it places a huge support burden on the dwindling experienced team members (who are still doing their own 10 hr/day job!) When you explain this to your manager, he/she will ignore it as most managers are mostly politicians so don't want to take up a cause unpopular with Execs, and the few that do speak up "coincidentally" don't progress in their careers. In addition to educating most of your team, you will have hopeless internal services support as those service hubs are similarly staffed & have a massive rate of attrition. In some cases, their responses are so far off the mark that it is easier to take the time to ask colleagues in your network if they had this issue ands how to solve it (now YOU're taking time from your colleagues that they can't afford). If there was any real focus on retaining resources in the hubs so we had experienced support , everyone could be more productive in their own roles. Maybe when IBM implodes and can no longer maintain the facade of an innovative caring company, the execs will realise that the idea of cheap resources and only caring about the $$$ CAN be taken way too far.