IBM reviews

3.9

78% would recommend to a friend

(107,119 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 107,119 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
2.0
Aug 12, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Big company, slow work environment, casual and laidback. Decent compensation, and they generally have good benefits. You can access education, if you need to, and they might support your career development if you're one of the favored employees.

Cons

Lots. The company is squeezing the lifeforce out of their US employees by outsourcing whatever they can overseas. Some organizations in IBM still maintain decent work life balance, and it also depends on your role within the company, but that balance is going away with added pressure to be more productive with less headcount. Before my time there was over, I was working 60-80 hrs. a week. The management in my department was clueless and had no idea how to load balance the workload or skill sets. They just absolutely SUCKED! And most of the senior engineers there just sucked. They couldn't figure out how to fix a bug if it costed them their lives. It made the workload even more unbearable since you had to make up for the slack in skills. Also, IBM's upper management has been cutting their U.S. expenses to the bone. There is never any money to do anything there. This has been going on since 2000, and I suspect it will get worse with time. With less money, expect less employees and more work.

1.0
May 16, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

With IBM, there are certain resources that you will have access to: certain products, information, customers and clients, etc. Some people in the future may respond positively to you having IBM as an employer on your resume (but that may change as their reputation is tarnished). IBM is a patent leader. IBM owns certain products that you may have interest in developing, selling, supporting, etc.

Cons

You will be happier somewhere else. There are plenty of employers that pay more. There are plenty that offer more of a chance to grow your career. There are many that will offer comparable benefits and name recognition. In the past, IBM urged their employees to complete at least two training classes each year to advance their skills. In the past IBM would recognize those whose contributions helped make the year a good one for the company. In the past, they offered the chance to advance in your pay band, move into other positions with the company, take advantage of the resources throughout the company. In the past, IBM's services competed by offering workers with greater skills that provided more knowledge and a better quality or service than others. In the past, IBM would continue to develop software and hardware lines with a long-tern strategy. None of that is true any longer. As an IBMer, you will see the only goal is short-term profits. You will see that quality is no longer mentioned, but cost always is. You will see that there is no chance to learn anything new. Smaller companies are acquired only to pad the portfolio of IBM's offerings, but they are not advanced, supported, or integrated with existing software/hardware. These things are sold until they need to upgrade, so another competitor is acquired. You will not get a raise. You will see the cost of your benefits rise while their value decreases. You will see people dumped from the company on a regular basis, and that will cause you such stress and concern over your future that you will become meek and frightened. You can learn this after working for IBM for years, or you can think about it before you even join the company.

1.0
Apr 6, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The best part of working for IBM is some employees have the option to work at home.

Cons

There is absolutely no respect for the individual. Sr. management could not care less about the employees. They are on a mission to move work offshore to India and China, and get rid of as many U.S. employees as they can. They are even forcing the U.S. employees to train their replacements. Then, employees with 20+ years and excellent reviews are thrown out like yesterday's trash. These are not low level employees -- we are talking about senior professionals in IT, finance, etc., who are highly educated and high performing employees.

Viewing 193 - 195 of 107,119 Reviews

Glassdoor has 131,505 IBM reviews submitted anonymously by IBM employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if IBM is right for you.