IBM

• Leadership development, mentoring, and personal growth. This was a good place to start my career, with so many talented individuals to work with and learn from.

• Culture of working remotely even before COVID. Fortunate to work with a good team and good management for years that fostered this, plus work-life balance.

• Opportunity to work on patents/intellectual property in any job role. Come up with the idea, IBM will take care of the rest and reward financially.

• Constant axe hanging over your head, never knowing if you'll have a job tomorrow due to layoffs, no matter your individual performance.

• Risk averse. IBM prefers to buy instead of build their own. I've witnessed firsthand a business proposal for a new amazing idea (containerization in its earliest days – before Kubernetes existed) get rejected. IBM purchased Red Hat to catch up versus taking the risk internally to develop the idea. Many other examples similar to this were observed over the years.

• Financial-based decision making. Short-term thinking at the expense of long-term investment. Poor bonuses due to impossible-to-meet company goals, frequent attrition (both voluntary and involuntary), and missed strategic opportunities result from this.

You have an amazing brand with the general public. However, not with software engineers. Twenty-plus years of layoffs have made you toxic to fresh college graduates and top talent in the industry. Invest in your existing employees versus RAing them. Make IBM once again a place somebody can say they are proud to work at and know they will have gainful long-term employment.