Working at IBM — Reviews by Employees

Pay: Very comparable to what you would expect from anybody else that's hiring software engineers. Raises and Bonuses are given out in extremely small amounts, for exemplary performance, you may only get a 1-2% pay increase.

Respect is a joke. Management RARELY listens to you, to the point of only acknowledging you exist when a task is piled on your already overflowing plate the day before it's due.

Great Benefits, but it's a must for the hours that are demanded you work, the time you're forced to surrender to the company just to keep employment.

Job Security: Great, if you're the only person to know how to do something. If you're not, then it's a day-to-day on whether you're still employed. This leads many people to hoarding information and refusing to share with others and having contingency plans should something happen.

There is no work/life balance. As much as they want to claim there is, there isn't. You balance a life in the short intervals when you're not expected to work. Expect 50-60 weeks REGULARLY, and when crunch time hits, you're expected to put in 80+ hour weeks to just stay afloat and meet ridiculous schedules. Was great a few years ago, but am lucky to be able to have a weekend or night free.

There isn't an ounce of growth. If you get stuck in a job, you have to threaten to quit to move, otherwise you're stuck where you're at until a new position opens you can move into and someone is hired to fill your vacancy.

Summary, IBM is HORRIBLE! If deciding between IBM and another, choose the other.

I graduated from a top notch engineering college and got hired by IBM short after. To me, IBM was something big, cutting edge and a company that I ever wanted to work for.

But it turned out ugly.

My title was "IT specialist". ON the first day, I had no idea what it stands for. Later, I found out that it means you bring your ass to stupid clients and perform redundant work that gradually kills your technical abilities. One of the worst corps, with CEO earning big bucks but regular IBMers get no reward for their work. No raise!! WTF

I'm glad I made a switch to another company who pays alot better. I absolutely love my new position. I advise anyone who works or plans to work at IBM think twice.

Best of luck guys.

I work in Zurich for the European arm of IBM software group out of Zurich but my "home planet" is UKI.

I was headhunted from outside IBM so pay has been relatively good for years. The differential has eroded over years of no raises and dishonest bonus however, but still probably competitive with what I could get elsewhere.

Respect is not a corporate entreat. Individual managers may have respect for me or my work but the company is the Borg collective, unemotionally doing whatever is needed to stop a run on IBM shares. No respect offered.

Benefits have eroded hugely in the ten years I have worked here, but so have competitors benefits, so still not too bad.

Job security is leveraged shamelessly by IBM to keep the drones uncomplainingly working for less pay and worse benefits. I have spent the last two years arriving at Friday evening thinking " well, that's another week and I haven't been fired yet". An emotionally draining way to spend a career.

My specialty means work/ life balance is very good for me, but I see others daily whose family lives are sacrificed ti IBM. So sad.

Career potential is GREAT as long as a person is at least competent but enormously, massively ambitious and will go anywhere for advancement. IBM will advance such folks beyond their level of competence. IBM resolutely does not know how to treat GOOD employees who do not necessarily aspire to being a VP of sub saharan Africa but instead are happy to work in their German home town. There is almost no "promotion in situ".

My co-workers include some of the cleverest and most innovating folks I have ever know. Many overseas folks are not.

The work environment s the worst I have known in 28 years of employment. " funereal" might be a good word for it.

With a TINY bit of heart IBM could be once again a fantastic place to work. But the extra cent on a share dividend is worth leaving that out for, obviously.

I have been working in IBM for the last 4 years. I joined as a fresher in the company. Initially they offered a little more salary than the competitiors. But each and every year the competitiors increase the salary and IBM gives peanuts to the employees. Each year you find something new coming to reduce your rating. Till last year 40hours per week was considered 100% utilization for an employee. This year onwards it is 45hours per week. Projects who do not allow 45 hours officially(though employees slog for 65 to 70 hours) get to listen to the music during rating.

It is very frustrating. I have faced sexual abuse, verbal abuse and every other form of insult while working in projects. All my friend who passed out with me are drawing 3 times more the salary than I am drawing in IBM Kolkata. This is the worst place to be. Also they encourage fraudulent certificates. Everybody knows that there are almost half the population in IBM who have fraud certificates. How come the top management does not know about this? At the end of the day, you will find people who are less competent getting better oppertunities and promotions. Please do not join this company if you want a healthy environment.

I joined IBM India as a fresher in 2008 and separated in 2009. Boy, am I glad I did! IBM is the biggest mix of extremely talented professionals / mindless idiots I have seen (so far). People who knew their stuff where really good at it and as a fresher, this exposure had a solid impact on improving my skills set. On the other hand were people who were complete idiots whose incompetence reached record heights. I was shocked the first time I met these people, that they actually worked for IBM and they had actually made it to the position they were in.

On the two projects I had worked in, I could safely assume that I wrote at least 40% of the total code, including what was expected of the TL, an (so called)SME and a couple of other freshers. This was considering I was a total newbie to the framework used in the project. There were several 80+ hour weeks of work(including weekends). On the other hand, most of my colleagues were freshers as well and some of them did not even have a Computer Science Engg degree, so you could imagine the difficulty they would have had having to write complicated OO code. The projects were a re-write of an existing product and I could only imagine the nightmare someone would have someday maintaining the code some of my colleagues wrote. People from IBM US who were complaining that their jobs were outsourced, hope this gives you an insight on how its completed and I hope you get some satisfaction from knowing that the work we did might actually help IBM lose an account soon.

Overall, up to this point, my experience with IBM was pretty positive. I had learnt a lot, and had been given the opportunity to discover myself as a programmer. The initial trainings were top notch (Prabakaran ji, where ever you are, hats off to you). I was fortunate enough to have a very good manager, who actually worked. He was always in before most of the team members, and had a positive impact on the team as a whole. Some of the others weren't so fortunate though, and had to put up with the usual stuff, lower PBCs, no bonuses, etc.

Pay: The initial package for a fresher in India is above country average (for freshers). However, they make it up by not offering any increase in pay at all. Another of my friends has been there for over two years now. He has a PBC of 1 for the past two years, his band however still remains unchanged (6g) and so does his pay. His manager is such a nitwit that he actually refused to release him when he got an offer in an offshore project.

Respect: Non existent. You are no more than a disposable piece of plastic that will be thrown out once you've done your job. If you think you are too good for them to lose you, you'll be mistaken. They don't give a damn about quality of work, its all about getting something done, no matter how half baked it is, at the cheapest possible cost.

Benefits: I was offered a joining bonus which I had to pay back as I had quit my job before 1 year. You also get some travel and relocation benefits, and some worthless BS insurance.

Job Security: if(0){ echo 'My job is secure'; }

Work / Life Balance: I was 21 and didn't have a gf (at that time) and my work was my life. Wouldn't do it now if they offered me 10x what I was paid.

Career Potential / Growth: Depends on how many managers you are willing to suck up to.

Location: I worked in DLF which was a new building and was pretty reasonably maintained. Parking was free. One thing I liked about the job.

Co-worker Competence: As I said before, if you are new, you are in for a surprise. Theres the best of them, and theres the worst of them.

Work Environment: Varies from team to team. Be prepared for old, underpowered PCs and an instant turn down of any RRs for more RAM. It does give you lots of time to drink coffee and sit around waiting for what you type to show up on screen though.

Summing up, if you are a fresher in India and you have a job offer with IBM here is what I can say.
1. If you have an other offer as well from a different company, seriously consider it. I don't have any experience with other Indian companies, but from what I heard, some of my friends are doing pretty well in other IT companies.
2. If you do join, make sure you don't stay very long, or your career will stall. Prepare for exit from day 1. You can always get rehired in a year or so for 2x / 3x the pay. Make the best use of blue pages / Sametime and befriend as many contacts as you can. This is the best thing IBM offers. There is a wide variety of people, and getting to know as many as you can would be the best thing you can do for your career. 50% of everyone I know who joined with me have quit, and they are doing much better.
3. The coffee machine makes weird noises, don't be alarmed.

As a footnote note, when I quit IBM, i moved to a different country. I was jobless and applied for a couple of jobs in IBM for which I knew I would be a perfect fit. I never heard back. Peter B / David D, if you are reading this, thank you very much! You did me a big favour! I'm doing extremely well now thanks to you guys shredding my resume as soon as you got it.

Sorry I ever joined this company 30 years ago. If you notice IBM might be a fortune 500 company but it is never on the list of great companies to work for. All the wonderful numbers that Wall Street receives are on the backs of those, like myself, who sacrifice for a company that doesn't give you the right time of day. Let's be honest, I am in my 5th year of not getting a raise. I have glowing appraisals. The canned management comment is "IBM US is not making money...there is no growth in IBM US, the monies are going overseas to china, singapore, India...those are the growth countries. The US is not a growth country any longer". I have tried numerous times to get a job outside of IBM. I am in the integrated supply chain (Procurement). However, when I do luck out and get an interview I am told I have too many years of "IBM Baggage" and that with all the perks that IBM gives its employees and with my salary being in the six figure realm that I wouldn't be happy at other jobs. Trust me I am no where near a six figure salary and I do not reap benefits and perks. I am a work at home employee and must pay for all my own supplies, printer ink, paper, etc. All the while I gave up an office which was costing the company $13K a years - as i have been told. Overall I feel like i Have wasted my time at IBM. I would never, ever - EVER recommend anybody to work at IBM. They are bunch of louses. I pray to be laid off so I can move on. That is when IBMers get better jobs. After they are laid off other companies figure you are not making your BIG BUCKS salary and can pick you up for pittins. DO NOT WORK FOR IBM OR CORPORATE AMERICA.

Dear All,

I have got placed @ IBM India as Incident Co-ordinator with 3 years of work experience and i've been offered band 5 with a salary less than 4 LPA. Can anyone please explain me the actual job profile of Incident Coordinator @IBM ?? during interview, they told me that i wud be workin in change management but they offered me a position in IM. Also, My friend (who is L2 in my current company, I am L3 here) with same exp has got placed as Incident Manager with a CTC of around 5.5 LPA. Was i been cheated ? Do i need to look for another company ? Am highly confused/.... somebody please help me.....

Any help/suggestion in this regard is highly appreciated. Thanks in advance !!

This is the worst company that you can think of joining. I wud prefer remaining jobless than to tolerate them. As a fresher you can ruin you entire career by joinging here. The rest details mentioned abt the managers are very relevant and I eud not like to repeat the same. Pls show some kindness to yourselves and dont join here. Dont even be near to any of its premises. I have been a victim here hence mark me.
Just to add the management has totally forgotten work ethics and are totally into money making which apparently they are unable to make.
There are a lot of illegal activities going within IBM top management which if brought to light can put the entire management from top to bottom behind bars.

Nothing more than a manager farm, not even good managers. If you're there as a technical expert, then get out now. You will be made to feel worthless, you'll be degraded and held responsible for the downright criminal decisions made by these incompetent idiots.... And then there's the bullying... Disagree with a manager, then expect to be threatened with a PIP and a low PBC (used to eventually "manage out" you out of IBM). Unless you work at one of the three main offices in IBM then expect to work in badly maintained buildings without zircon or adequate heating. If you have little respect for other collegues, no product expertise or knowledge then IBM is the place for you.... Everyone one else should look else ware.

I got offer frm IBM and CTS .. can anyone suggest which to choose