IBM Client Engineering reviews

Management lies, and as a first line manager, I know ... Indeed my management chain requires me to lie to my team: people I trust and respect. Lies and misrepresentation are the IBM family values, particularly for personnel issues and also for business metrics. That is the biggest downside - you never know when you're getting the straight story. For example, the PBC system is a ranking system. A first line manager is told what their "skew" has to be - the company advertises that a first line manager can use their own judgment for differentiation between team members, subject to some oversight to ensure equity. In actual fact managers are told what to do and are required to lie to their team members so that the executives can make their metrics. There are many other examples - and I see them every day - it always comes down to managing the metrics, rather than the results.

Not all people are treated equally - for example, sales people are generally treated with total disrespect, whereas consultants and holders of domain expertise are treated properly. When the client teams don't work together (more often than not) then you had better be in the stronger camp or you are toast. Expect to spend the best part of 30% of your time fighting your own organisation.