IBM

You get to work with very interesting people. Depending on the team you work in, you can get involved in international assignments. A lot of the senior engineers are very experienced and, as a person who started as a graduate, it is great to work and learn from these people.

Can work from home.

Work-life balance does exist if there is downtime. However, expect to go way over and beyond at other times.

Casual and comfortable office setting - unless you actually go and see customers, you can wear very casual clothing to work.

Do not expect to get a pay rise every year.

Salary is not competitive compared to other organizations.

Managers at times do not fully value their employees and overlook efforts. This will affect your end-of-year bonus or potential for a pay rise.

Room for growth is limited.

Don't expect management to provide or pay for professional development.

Management may not be interested in your professional development or career aspirations. I wanted to do job shadowing (which is something that is promoted in the company, but was rejected because all the manager could say was 'there is no job for that here,' even though the purpose of job shadowing is to allow employees to go out for a very short period of time to learn other roles or parts of the business).

Think more about your employees' professional careers and personal aspirations.

Be more aware of competitive rates outside.