IBM

Some cool tech in the stack and the tools used to build the CI/CD pipeline.

Good cafe in the building.

No onboarding, no engineering documentation, poor collaboration and communication, and a hostile work environment.

When my manager was replaced with a new one, he proved to be inexperienced and a bully. As he was assigned to work for a manager who was also a bully, I had no choice but to file a formal complaint with HR and with the head of the business unit. Without giving any negative feedback, my new manager singled me out from the group as the only person who was not allowed to work from home several days a week, as had been promised by the hiring manager.

I was also singled out as the only person in the group that had to work specified hours.

My formal complaint generated a witchhunt. I provided digital proof of my case that made it clear that anything negative being said about me was false, but it was ignored.

During the witchhunt, the head of the business unit even interviewed two employees who had worked with me 15 years earlier in a different type of engineering group (QA) to see what they had to say about my performance at that time. My employment lawyer stated that a court would not look kindly on such an inappropriate tactic.

I was not alone in my concerns about our new management chain. Our architect left the company shortly after the change in management, and others left the group over the next few months as well.

Worst work experience I have ever had in 36 years in the industry across companies of all sizes.

Get the Cloud Innovation Lab under control. Run it like a real business, eliminating single points of failure through the use of cross-training, documentation, collaboration, and communication. Create an onboarding process to improve the productivity of new hires. Get rid of managers who rule by intimidation. Create an HR complaints process that is independent of the business unit and does not just turf the complaint to the head of the business unit.