Can't compete with other tech companies on culture, salary, or opportunities
Pros
In my department, work-life balance is good, although this varies wildly across IBM. People are nice and it's not cut throat. Pretty good benefits -- 3 weeks vacation, 401k match (but only matched at the end of the year), good health insurance, 12 weeks maternity/6 weeks paternity leave (none of the great benefits our competitors give though -- no free food, shuttle buses, social events)
Cons
Very poor manager training leads to terrible managers and lots of politics. Very slow upward mobility. Lower salaries than competitors. Not "millennial" friendly -- feels very old and stodgy, we have lots of millennial panels but their recommendations don't go anywhere at all. Experience is extremely dependent on who your manager is and what department you are in. Constant budget cuts lead to terrible HR coverage, bad office spaces, low morale. Ironically for being an IT company we have slow and clunky internal software and tools.