IBM

A lot of flexibility; you really have the possibility to work at your own pace.

Really good life/work balance.

Possibility to change teams inside the company (if your manager agrees).

Nobody tracks how many hours you do; as long as you do your job, you are fine.

Possibility to work from home.

Company is starting to adopt Agile methodologies (but it still is an ongoing process).

• Less benefits compared to other IT giants.
• In most of the teams, very ancient tools and technology.
• Depending on the team, if you do more than what they expect, this might not be recognized.
• Programmers are viewed as numbers; projects can be shut down, and you are reallocated in a few weeks.
• The possibility to learn by doing normal work is zero; most of the time is spent maintaining or fixing legacy code.
• In Ireland, there is almost zero possibility to have an impact and emerge.
• In Ireland, your manager will almost never know what you do; USA teams are in control of everything.

Stop collecting whatever the USA teams do not want and start to fight in order to get real development in Ireland. Do not let band 8 and higher be recognitions only for Team Leaders and Managers. Try to give the right importance to developers, trying to make them grow beyond band 7.

Stop thinking that developers are just developers; the quality matters, especially if we want to deliver products that last.