
Name and Shame: IBM - generichuman
https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/97qhdo/name_and_shame_ibm/
======
jaysonelliot
The OP doesn't focus on this in the post, but they're a recent grad with no
work experience.

Maybe it was a bit of a cattle-call experience, but IBM is sorting through
thousands of similar grads and needs some way to screen them for technical
positions when many will have no professional history.

If being asked to take some tests, then flown out for a stay in a nice hotel
and a big mixer (with some great networking opportunities, btw), then offered
a six-figure salary at your first job out of school requires a "name and
shame," then the OP sounds a bit entitled.

~~~
4lch3m1st
Though I agree that complaining like this can be a problem for people with
zero experience, I don't think it is a valid argument against what OP is
pointing out. Most of the process seems to be rooted on automation, which
encourages candidates to find a way to bypass the selection system instead of
showing actual competence. This means a direct loss on the company's staff
quality. If anything, IBM might be losing good people, possibly to other
companies.

~~~
kamaal
Part of the problem with software today is bulk of the jobs are library
plumbing.

Sure you still have jobs where something of high quality like an OS patch,
driver or some big algorithm work needs to be done- But those jobs are rare,
and there are often ways to hire such people looking at their prior
experience.

Its always hard for freshers to break into the cream software jobs that can
offer you some different experience compared to others.

In general you have to take whatever comes along the way and build on that.
This is unfortunate, regardless of whatever practice you might have done on
leetcode, plumbing like jobs are what are common in the world today.

------
CSEThrowaway
Disclaimer: not an IBM employee here; I have only interacted with current/past
employees and these examples are anecdotal:

One fresh-out-of-college software engineer spent the first year or so working
on nothing but PowerPoints and watching "agile training" videos to improve his
score on some kind of IBM social/point system. He moved to actual programming
when he relocated to a different office. Then, one Friday, a manager came to
him and said his project was shut down, and that he was starting on a new team
that following Monday.

When I interviewed at Google, the woman I talked to at lunch (CS PhD) had
nothing nice to say either, and she worked on Watson which seems to be their
saving grace. She made a lot of the same critiques of the work environment
there, also adding that Watson is mostly just a marketing stunt for non-
technical customers.

------
codingdave
There are certainly problems in that process, but it also sounds like the
author doesn't understand the difference between IBM and a startup. Anyone who
expected stock options from a company that is over 100 years old with hundreds
of thousands of employees just doesn't understand with whom they were
interviewing.

~~~
dunpeal
> sounds like the author doesn't understand the difference between IBM and a
> startup. Anyone who expected stock options from a company that is over 100
> years old with hundreds of thousands of employees just doesn't understand
> with whom they were interviewing.

You don't have to be a startup to offer RSUs. FAANG have just as many
engineers as IBM, and offer them.

~~~
kamaal
Often those are not like million dollar RSUs. Most of the big money goes to
top management, and technical people who manage other technical people. The
other technical people to get them are generally who are well connected up
with the bosses and have some political leverage, to help them negotiate well.

The ordinary people get little to get by. And often the vesting schedule is
long, and taxes eat into bulk of it.

This is true even in FAANG. In fact your best bet to get any meaningful RSU
grant is to be something like employee number 300 as a Manager at Facebook.

You also need to understand one thing. Promotions are hard to come by in FAANG
companies, because generally every one is at least as awesome as you are. So
you also stagnate quite a lot in those companies.

~~~
dunpeal
I don't want to embark on the millionth discussion of FAANG compensation, but
there are enough known facts about FAANG engineers making millions of dollars
on their RSUs over 4-5 years, especially at the more senior levels.

FAANGs are obviously not totally equitable, and you won't make a CEO's comp as
an engineer, but you will make more than most other places.

Also, I completely disagree with the notion that promotions are the cure
against "stagnation". Stagnation has to do with the nature of your work, not
your fancy title, height on the corporate hierarchy tree, or for that matter -
your pay.

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pjc50
"The screening interview requires:

    
    
        A webcam with a clear view of you and your room
        Granting a tool (admin) access to your computer to make sure you don't cheat
    

which alone constitute a massive breach of privacy, in my opinion."

This is the sort of thing that _might_ be alright when IBM does it, but
absolutely should not be normalised because you can't trust what people are
going to do with that admin access and how it might feed into the hiring
process.

> "If you need literally any [disability] accommodation, You won't be getting
> it"

Again, if this isn't actually discriminatory it's certainly something that
shouldn't be normalised.

~~~
rwmj
I wonder if setting up a fresh, secure virtual machine and working out the
incantations to forward your webcam and microphone devices to it are part of
the test?

~~~
TremendousJudge
in IBM? no way under the heavens

------
HiroshiSan
Strange world we live in where $100k is something to scoff at. I get it's
silicon valley but sheesh.

~~~
dunpeal
Market value for engineers in that area is $160-200k. Should OP apologize for
declining $100k?

He went through an long and arduous interview process, to be rewarded with an
offer that is less than 50% than his objective market value. Should he be
grateful?

IBM wasted his time and their own.

I don't get this strange reluctance to accept that us engineers are finally
commanding decent compensation. You don't see CEOs shaming each other for
declining low offers.

Everyone gets paid as much as they can. Why are we engineers supposed to be
grateful for anything thrown our way? Are we morally obliged to race to the
bottom?

~~~
streblo
Market value for new grads is not $160-200k

~~~
dunpeal
> For comparison, the average new grad offer in Silicon Valley at a FAANG
> company here is $160k. If you play your cards right, you can negotiate this
> to $190k+.

OP is implying that IBM is going for the same caliber of talent as FAANG, then
lowballing at the end of the process, after you spent 3 days on site.

I had that happen to me with a different company in the valley so I know how
frustrating it is.

Personally I'd expect IBM to try to compete with FAANG, so I also understand
the surprise there.

Finally, OP apparently did get his $160k+ offer eventually, so he was right
that IBM lowballed him.

~~~
vonmoltke
Using FAANG salaries for the market value of engineers is like using Big Law
salaries for the market value of lawyers. They represent a pinnacle, not a
typical.

~~~
dunpeal
Using FAANG comp is definitely relevant if you have FAANG-level credentials
and can get an offer from a FAANG. If IBM is interviewing this type of people,
they're expected to make competitive offers rather than waste everyone's time.

The whole OP sounds like dictionary definition of HR dropping the ball, doing
everything "corporate style", being out of touch with the market and the
candidates, and then making unrealistic low offers. They deserve to be called
out.

Moreover, there was an article about how many companies are trying to compete
with FAANG for the same talent by providing higher compensation, which
corresponds with my personal experience and that of my friends.

Apparently IBM decided to buck the trend.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
> Using FAANG comp is definitely relevant if you have FAANG-level credentials
> and can get an offer from a FAANG.

Then why bother interviewing at IBM at all?

~~~
dunpeal
Because they are a well known company, and OP assumed they could pay
competitively?

It happened to me personally with another company: well-known in their field,
everything they communicated implied they're aware of my current offers and
looking to make a competitive counteroffer. Everything goes well...

Then BAM, their offer is 20% less than my lowest outstanding offer, which they
knew about.

Total waste of time. So I understand OP's frustration.

~~~
kamaal
>>Because they are a well known company, and OP assumed they could pay
competitively?

There is no way IBM would pay $200K to a fresher graduating out of college. I
can't imagine any company doing that. Including Amazon.

In fact if you remove Ad revenue driven companies, I guess apart from Apple,
nobody would pay that much.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
This sounds weird:

> You had to ask me for help on what for loops and import statements are.

We're talking about the "best" people here who already completed the coding
interviews. I find it hard to believe she didn't know what a _for_ loop is.

~~~
pjc50
The most likely answers are:

\- she knew what one was, but had forgotten details of the syntax

\- she was panicking (pressure makes people say ridiculous things)

\- she knew perfectly well what it was but didn't interrupt his unsolicited
explanation

~~~
NotQuantum
I thought this exactly, I'm guessing OP was just steamrolling her because she
was asking a basic question

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wccrawford
>You had to ask me for help on what for loops and import statements are. I had
to give her a crash course on running Python code and using Git. This girl was
fast-tracked to an offer on the Watson team. None of the IBM employees
understood what she was doing because there were literally zero technical
people in the loop - it just sounded/looked cool so her plagiarism went
unnoticed.

It's going to be brutal when she has moved out there, spent a ton of time and
money to relocate herself, and then gets fired for being unable to do the job
she was hired for.

And it'll be all her own fault.

~~~
pjc50
I'm always a little skeptical of someone's report on their competition under
high-pressure circumstances.

~~~
throwaway080383
Yeah if she learned Python and for-loops _that_ day, and was able to ship the
desired project to the satisfaction of the judges, that's pretty impressive,
right? Even if she used some existing code for facial recognition, isn't
gluing together libraries the bulk of most software engineers' work?

~~~
merlincorey
I teach an intro to Python class for people with no programming experience
whatsoever that definitely goes through for-loops within the first few hours.

If someone has basic proficiency in any other programming language at all,
then learning how to do a for-loop in Python is a trivial matter of minutes to
maybe half an hour, in my experience.

~~~
throwaway080383
Sure, I just meant that going from that level of knowledge to shipping a
working program which integrates with a non-trivial third party library is a
decent showing for a new grad hire.

~~~
jscholes
> Sure, I just meant that going from that level of knowledge to shipping a
> working program which integrates with a non-trivial third party library is a
> decent showing for a new grad hire.

Do you think this is a commonly-held view? Honest question, because I know I
could pull this off and I didn't finish university (or study CS when I was
there). If companies are looking for this level of talent during the
application process, I could probably work for IBM without a CS degree but
it's not likely they'd even look twice at my resumé.

~~~
throwaway080383
I'm not sure if it's a commonly held view, but I don't have a CS degree, and
neither do some of the best people I work with, at a company most folks on
this site would "rank" at least as high as IBM. That said, our interviews are
the usual "write code on a whiteboard" style.

Part of the difficulty of pullimg this off, in my opinion, is finding that
third-party library in the first place, and getting everything working under a
time crunch. I dunno, I may have a weird view on these things; I find doing
coding competition problems on a whiteboard much easier than actual practical
engineering.

I'm sure you could get an interview at IBM if you get an internal reference.

------
tomp
Actually I like the "automated video interview" idea. Sure, the _grading_ part
shouldn't be automated (i.e. there's no reason why they wouldn't accept an
answer where the interviewee made a small mistake then corrected it), but if
it saves (human) time, it's probably a good idea!

~~~
haasted
Can't really call it an "interview", though, when there is only one
participant.

For what it's worth, I find that approach humiliating to the interviewee. It's
a subtle way to tell him that they do not value his time as highly as their
own.

~~~
tomp
Huh? Do you also think that the bank "doesn't value your time as highly as
their employees'" if they let you use banking services over a phone app? How
about online courses, are teachers to be blamed for "not valuing students'
time as much as their own"?

Personally, I find this attitude against automation (where possible,
reasonable and useful) to be almost Luddite-like.

In addition, if you can automate the process, you might even be able to extend
your candidate pool (i.e. interview a lot more people, and not rely on weakly-
correlated-but-almost-arbitrary signals such as premium university name on the
candidates' CVs, but instead select the _actually_ good people).

~~~
throwawayaway12
I think it is more that candidates (especially well qualified ones) view the
interview process as a two way street. The company is probing you for
competence/fit for the position and the candidate is probing the company for
things like culture fit.

~~~
tomp
Fair enough, but in general the candidate has a lot more information about the
company (e.g. through the website, news, etc.) than the company about the
candidate. But, yeah, it definitely depends on the supply/demand ratio; a
company that's getting more applications than they need _should_ take steps to
optimize/automate the process. At least the initial steps - later rounds
should definitely involve humans, in-person interviews, culture fit etc.

------
gilbetron
[https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-
de...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-developer-
salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,32.htm)

$100k is fine for a new grad.

------
rplnt
It should be noted that while IBM is a global company that shares a lot of
processes across globe, this might not be something that is identical
everywhere. It kind of shows valley-centrism of OP, or I guess of everyone
working there.

------
laythea
I can understand that companies have so many degree qualified people to sift
through nowadays that this is necessary but from the candidates point of view,
I have no idea why anybody, desperate grad or not, would subject themselves to
such a process. Walk away and find reasonable alternative employment!

------
compsciphd
In context of offer as described in the article.

8 years ago at IBM, my post doc at IBM Research was around $120K (2010). 10
Years prior to that (while still an undergrad) I was offered a job at the LTC
in Austin at around 70K a year (i.e. 2000), turned it down to go to grad
school. (yes, I took my time)

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chuckgreenman
This kind of process just reinforces why doing paid internships and freelance
work during college is so important. I think after you go through that process
your tolerance for crappy hiring practices approaches zero.

Something you learn quickly in freelancing is no money == no work. It doesn't
matter if it is to measure technical ability. Any amount of time you spend not
doing something else carries a cost, if companies aren't willing to pay for it
early on, why would they respect your time later?

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crunchlibrarian
I love reading these rants. I wish more young people fresh out of college were
confident and critical like this, I see too many people simply accept whatever
the organization tells them without doing the research.

You really have to stand up for yourself and be willing to fight in every
interaction with corporations, because they will exploit you in every way
possible if you let them. And there is very little recourse for wronged
employees in today's rigged arbitration arena.

~~~
MrEfficiency
To be fair, thats part of 'experience'.

7 years after college, I'm not a noob engineer, I'm a leader on my team.

The way I talk to recruiters has changed as well, and they know what my
paygrade is as a result.

A grad doesnt have that industry experience and HR penalizes them greatly for
it.

The biggest threat is being a new grad and never changing companies. I know a
kid 2 years younger than me making 50k less per year than me.

~~~
mbrumlow
What is so wrong with not changing companies? I ask for a friend who has
worked on the same product for over 10 years, although the company has been
bought sold a few times.

This "friend" found that any job offers he got always resulted in a pay-grade
drop (normally for startups), or working with boring technologies that would
not advance his personal knowledge.

\--

I know for a fact that this has hurt me with big companies like Google when
interviewing there, the last interview resulted in them flat out telling me I
have not worked at enough companies.

I personally think that is unfair, as I don't think you know what you have
done good or bad at a company if you only stay there for 2 years. I did some
checking and found that many software engineer seem to have a chain of
companies they worked for 2 or less years. And I could not help to think they
have no way of really knowing if the things you did were good or bad in the
long run.

Anyways, just wondering what others thoughts are on work patterns, and their
experiences.

~~~
ghaff
Conventional wisdom is that job hopping leads to better salaries. Of course,
conventional opinion is also that changing jobs once every year or two
shouldn't be viewed as a red flag by hiring managers and it certainly is in
many cases.

Personally, I've been a reasonably long tenure at most jobs I've had.

I do think there's a reasonable medium though. If you've been at some big
company for a couple of decades and try to switch jobs later in your career,
that can be difficult too.

