IBM reviews

3.9

78% would recommend to a friend

(107,304 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 107,304 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
Feb 6, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay's good for senior talent. The benefits are decent.

Cons

Bloated bureaucracy and overbearing processes. Much lip-service paid to Open Source, but legal approval processes to be able to use it make it agonizing and slow to actually get permission to use it. Patronizing and often downright mean management. Management which often explicitly stifles and punishes any hints of dissent; aka, "honest opinions". Much arrogance about being "cutting edge", whereas the reality is that IBM is too slow to adopt new technologies. Co-option of terms like "agile", applying them to whatever IBM currently does rather than actually changing and "walking the walk". Constant fear of being on the "wrong" project or working for the "wrong" manager, which may lead you vulnerable to the next round of layoffs. A performance review process which often bears little relationship to reality, with only managers and a few "architects" giving any input into your review, as opposed to your actual peers with whom you work. Lack of money to buy equipment, resulting in obsolete computers on desktops, and a constant struggle to find adequate hardware to test on.

2.0
Feb 6, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very Challenging work (at times) Getting to work with some top notch players.

Cons

Very very poor management, IBM does not honour its "Bonus Plan" they told you about when they hire you The PBC rating are awful. They are forced to give x number of 3 and limited the number of 1 they give. What happens when everyone on your team is a heads and shoulders above the average performer? You still are forced to give someone a 3 and let them go. You are also alone. You get very little contact with your team and very little to no support from corporate. If they do show up, it means you are in trouble. They deny required professional training for recertification and then will ding you when you do not recertify.

2.0
Feb 6, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There are opportunities to work on exciting projects and learn how a large company works. The benefits are good (not great). With the right manager, you can have a good work-life balance.

Cons

Executive management does not communicate truthfully about layoffs or pretty much anything dealing with employees. They have basically been lying about the current layoffs. Of course, they layoff staff but very few managers. They purport to hire only the best, but then they have no problem giving ranking based on an arbitrary distribution. Which in turn does not make employees feel very valued. Benefits have slowly been reduced over the years; waiting for that to happen again.

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