IBM Software Developer reviews

3.9

78% would recommend to a friend

(5,765 total reviews)
avatar

Arvind Krishna

71% approve of CEO

66% positive business outlook

Software Engineer/Developer employees have rated IBM with 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 5,765 company reviews on Glassdoor. This indicates that most Software Engineer/Developer professionals have a good working experience there. IBM is rated in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) by Software Engineer/Developer professionals compared to other employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

6K reviews
2.0
Jun 15, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Big company, Ok health benefits, the illusion of job security.

Cons

Really frugal (cheap) company, no snacks, employees are required to work on old/outdated computer equipment (lots of developers still forced to work on Windows XP), and managers don't seem to appreciate your input or innovations. I actually applied the Joel Test to the area I worked at within IBM, and found that they failed miserably. If you're a Software Engineer, you'll most likely find yourself working with outdated technologies and programming frameworks mandated by non-technical executives. And if you haven't heard, IBM is laying off people left and right at this time, with the possibility of more layoffs coming towards the end of this year. Definitely not the best company to be at right now.

2.0
Jun 10, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work from home was allowed at any time, no questions asked. 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 20something, 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 makes for the young ones to want to leave, and the internals 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...).

Viewing 5425 - 5427 of 5,765 Reviews

Glassdoor has 131,911 IBM reviews submitted anonymously by IBM employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if IBM is right for you.