Taro Logo

Used to be a stable career choice

Senior Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at IBM for 20 years
November 11, 2014
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
3.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Technical breadth and customer opportunities are hard to beat, since IBM is still one of the largest tech companies in the world.

If you can find them, there is an IBM expert on everything (kind of like the Federal Government).

Cons

IBM used to be a stable career choice. But with Resource Actions an annual event for the last five years, it's hard to imagine being able to last long enough to retire or even make a difference here. The typical IBM employee now is a new hire, lasts 1 to 3 years (just long enough to show one or two stable roles on the resume), then takes the resume to get a job somewhere else.

The first and apparently only response to negative financial quarters is: do an RA, freeze hiring and salaries, eliminate training and customer travel, shift work to lower-skilled, lower-paid resources, and shift work offshore.

Advice to Management

Now that you've abandoned the Roadmap 2015 financial targets, stop laying off your employees and treating them like the source of the problem, instead of the only possible solution you can have as a services and software company.

Was this helpful?

IBM Interview Experiences