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Slow moving, stuck in the past, and full of never-ending processes

Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at IBM for 1 year
June 10, 2013
Austin, Texas
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Work from home was allowed at any time, no questions asked. There was no hour tracking or anyone making sure I was meeting quotas, as long as I was getting my work done.

Cons

The team moved slowly and individually. There was no sense of teamwork or camaraderie, only individuals with tasks.

This was exacerbated by the fact that upper management was forcing the departments into Agile, which led to employees used to doing Waterfall to simply do Waterfall with iterations.

Agile was used entirely as an hour-tracking tool for the bosses to send angry emails every day based on their pointless charts, which were based on numbers that everyone was making up.

As a 20-something, being the only one in a sea of long-time employees with the next youngest employee being in their 30s is a bit of a shock. The fact that IBM only hires college hires or internal employees makes the young ones want to leave, and the internal employees to result in an echo chamber where no one advances the team.

To have to use a version control system whose last major update was in 1995 is insane and will scare off any new talent to a more modern company (where modern in this case could be someone using CVS...).

Advice to Management

Start upgrading your processes for the modern world. You are competing with the likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon in talent acquisition, which means your processes need to be competitive as well.

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