IBM

Good starting pay. Other employees were great. Usually flexible if you need time off. Good benefits. Most managers were very willing to work with you for whatever you needed.

Executives are focused on chasing short-term gains.

Frequently, as an SRE, I was told to focus on new products over the stability and performance of existing offerings.

The team was understaffed for all but a few months of the year.

The company seems to be moving a large number of jobs from the US to Central/South America.

The company was built on being not only innovative but also having solid, dependable products. If you throw away the second, pursuing market trends and the latest buzzword products, you'll make yourselves indistinguishable from all the other tech companies. You might bring in customers with the shiny new tech, but they won't stick around if you constantly sabotage support and stability when the next thing comes around. You're coasting on your name and reputation for reliability, but that won't last forever. Many of your employees actually take pride in that reputation and being able to serve so many important customers. You should too, and the best way to do that is to give them the resources they need to do so effectively, even if it means the quarterly profits aren't quite as high. Listen to the team leads and give them the people they need instead of trying to run as lean as possible. Give developers the time they need to build a great product instead of pushing for an early release to meet some marketing deadline. IBM is a great company with amazing people among the regular employees and lower to mid-level management. It just seems the executives have lost sight of what makes the company as good as it is.