I think it's true that people are leaving in droves from IBM. My colleagues left last month and I will do the same by the end of this month. It made me laugh when someone said that the management is in a panic because a large number of people are leaving. Is that a joke? It seems to me that this management doesn't take it seriously at all.
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They know they can get cheaper replacements and that is ALL they care about
They will get an ignorant warm body. Not a replacement. Information and knowledge have always been extremely valuable, but curiously, the bean counters never count the cost of losing them.
I took asked for and got the "package" last year and found a much better job. I have no ill feeling towards IBM, just disappointment in watching a company directed by Bean Counters calling all the shots. IBM is not what it was when I joined in the 1990s. Life is better outside of IBM. No regrets...
@luc+1cnChB8j Oh, I think you're right. At the VP level and above, they probably can match external offers ... and it's more a matter of whether they want to expend the political capital to do so. When I affirmed the OP's statement that they're "powerless to do anything about it", I was thinking more of the "three layers of management" the OP mentioned. From what I've seen, managers below VP level are shittin' their knickers worse than anybody at IBM ... because most of them no longer have skills that are marketable outside of IBM if they get let go.
They don’t care if people are going. They know they can get cheaper replacements and that is ALL they care about.
@svt+1cnChB8j i disagree, at vp level they can definitely match the pay especially when the person has an external offer.
I know 2-3 colleagues who got a retention.
It depends on factors like how easily they think they can find your replacement, how much more is your external offer compared to ibm, how's your relationship with team, most importantly how's the BU doing etc.
I've seen them match 50% and go overboard to keep people especially this year since they can't find anyone.
As with all major inflections there are outcomes which are not what would be desired, but are logical. Specifically since September last year with the Kyndryl announcement the floodgates opened and overwhelmingly not for those that IBM/Kyndryl would want to retain:
- Those in GTS that were well-known and technically competent/up-to-date started to look around and took offers they would likely had declined: without the IBM kool-aid that for many of them meant something, my LinkedIn and email is full with “I’m leaving” messages in the last 6 months. This are not the persons that IBM/Kyndryl would want to get rid of, since by definition those would bit be the ones pouched and/or confident enough to leave.
- In GBS things are a bit more calm but while the focus on Cloud and AI is not bad there is some uncertainty in the short term.
- C&CS is a clusterfuck , RAs will get rid of people to leave those in in an even worse situation. While ostensibly it’s the bet of IBM the uncertainty has also lead to several high-profile exits.
In the end Red Hat is the one less affected , but even this only time will tell. Those leaving IBM will hardly be big proponents of it and those completely outside will eventually try to find independent alternatives. Or not, maybe this will all work out.
@iqv+1cnChB8j I think they were being sincere ... there are still some really good people at IBM ... but as you said, they're "powerless to do anything about it." 😕
When I left, three layers of management in my own reporting line plus managers I worked with adjacently told me how sad they were and what a huge loss I would be.
But none of them did anything to actually get me to stay, like offering me a substantial pay raise, fewer hours, or less stupid status meetings.
I'm torn between thinking that they didn't mean what they said, or that they did mean but are powerless to do anything about it. One of IBM's biggest problems is how little power is actually devolved below the GM level.
@mdb+1cnChB8j agree with everything you said except this year is different in that no competitive new grad is applying to ibm, ibm never used to get anyone with experience but this time it's different, they're not getting a competitive resume!
I recently left IBM in a sales role and I have a few thoughts:
1) The ramp up period to understand IBM's archaic business model is very long. It took me 2 years to just understand all the products, how our IT systems work, how compensation works, and becoming comfortable with knowing how to work the internal system. IBM will not be able to just hire off the street and have them perform at a high level. They will leave before they hit that ramped up level.
2) The best sellers are all leaving, even the ones who bled blue and wanted to retire here. IBM is just a toxic place and other tech companies are just offering a lot more. Those sellers are being replaced by brand new college hires who need many years of professional development before they can be effective. It ends up being the sales manager doing hand holding with the new hires.
3) Our clients are slowly phasing off of IBM. I spoke with a client at my new company - when he found out I was at IBM, he laughed and said I was smart to leave. IBM is a joke in the marketplace. The only people who stay on it are legacy customers who just think it's a pain to switch. No new company is using IBM software/hardware/services.
4) We all know this, but IBM is playing a financial engineering game with sales. We offer cutrate discounts to get the deal in quarter. Our customers now expect that. Margins are decreasing. With no more GTS, we're losing a reason customers still talk to us.
I'm so glad I left. Selling at IBM was really tough because of the bad products, horrible leadership, and short-term mentality culture. Get out while you can. The hiring is just incredible right now.
IBM has treated people like a disposable commodity for so long that management just can't break away from that mindset. Senior management still arrogantly believes that the IBM brand has an unlimited amount of goodwill, and can always be used to attract new people to replace anyone who leaves. Having worked with some of the new folks, though, I can tell you that most of them aren't even close to the caliber of the people who have departed out of disgust with what IBM has become. I've also seen that the small number of new folks who ARE good quickly realize there's nothing but a raging dumpster fire behind that shiny IBM logo façade, that joining IBM was a BIG mistake, and they jump ship as soon as they can.
Apple has just started hiring on LinkedIn for Raleigh. Expect some of the top talent in RTP to jump ship soon.
Actually ibm managers aren't panicking because they're completely non-technical and still behaving like they used to because they think this is like business as usual but talk to any technical lead who isn't planning to go and would tell you candidly what's happening.
They're not even getting quality candidates to apply for jobs which are opened because of an opening.
Arvind and Jim had made it clear that ibm pay is competitive which is what managers repeat as parrots but that is so-far from the truth.
Ibm will be begging to hire new people because they will realize it very late that this year's purge is so different