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      IBM

      Engaged Employer

      IBM reviews

      3.9

      78% would recommend to a friend

      (107,214 total reviews)
      avatar

      Arvind Krishna

      76% approve of CEO

      68% positive business outlook

      Ratings by demographic groups

      IBM has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 107,214 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
      Oct 28, 2008

      IBM Global Services - Quantity over Quality

      systems analyst
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Large customer accounts offer enterprise-level systems experience and a variety of problems to work on. Other teams nearby offer the potential for information sharing. Good food in the cafeteria. Parking lots are well lit at night.

      Cons

      IBM Global Services is motivated to take on as many large, outsourced support contracts but provide the cheapest support possible. Constant staff cuts and uncertainty of future work, despite outsourced accounts justifying the need for staff and elevated levels of support. Managers sometimes change frequently with little notice. Supported customers don't realize the diminutive staffs that are supporting their accounts and demand high levels of service.

      1.0
      Oct 28, 2008

      More layoffs imminent

      Hardware engineer
      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

      One former IBMer's view on being an IBMer

      Former ibmer
      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.

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