IBM

Private offices.

Decent chance for advancement for new college hires.

Experienced, knowledgeable people.

Great place to work for the best employees. You'll get trips, options, and nice rewards.

Horrible place to work for an average employee.

Management is moving more products to SVL and combining multiple people in offices. A lot of outsourcing overseas (India/China).

For lab developing billions of $ worth of software, amenities are very poor. Horrible cafeteria, library was removed to add space for mobile workers traveling to the lab.

In general at IBM, techies are not viewed as important. Driving customer sales and becoming a salesperson is required to rise in the ranks.

Many experienced people mean that they are long-time residents of San Jose. Someone coming from out of state will be hard-pressed to live comfortably for a long time unless they like a long commute. The basic management explanation is that you have to suffer for a while, and you'll get rewarded later.

Promotions can be bad because of the PBC system. Common management thinking is that you get promoted when you do work above your band. However, when you move into the next band, you are assumed to be the lowest performer in the new band and get a lower ranking. A lower ranking causes you to get a small (or no) bonus/raise. Management compensates for this by not promoting people until they are overpaid in their band, then when they get to the new band, they can endure the penalty of the promotion.

Some people stay in bands and gobble up money/high appraisals because it is to their advantage. They do not want the additional work associated with a higher band and increased competition, even though they are doing higher-band work. Those people in the wrong band cause increased competition at lower bands, making promotion more difficult and skewing the PBC rankings.

Promote people to their proper bands and evaluate them on their work. Comparison to peers is okay, but it is often taken to an extreme.

Throw away the bell curve; this isn't high school.

IBM's recommendation on PBC rankings is 10%, 80%, 5%, and 5%. Management takes that as fact and distributes the rankings exactly that way. Since 10% get a 3, and two 3s means you're out, there is a "musical" three rotating around to satisfy the PBC rules but prevent people from getting laid off. This doesn't motivate the average employee.