Working at IBM GBS organization?

GBS is more like IBM’s division that competes with Infosys/TCS/Wipro. Technology, learning and WLB is solely dependent on the client. Basically it works as a body shop, they’ll try to find a new assignment if the current one is done.

This is where I work and here is my experience after a year… Technology is usually Java/Spring with SQL DB hosted on AWS. It is project dependent ofc and I have used Python and React as well but mainly Java for the Cloud practice. Learning is very much up to you. IBM has a Think40 requirement which basically means you need to complete 40 hours of online courses via their Your Learning platform. Some courses are very solid but many aren’t comparable to say Coursera or even Udemy. We do get a complimentary Udemy membership though, which is cool. Projects are usually building RESTful services but may vary depending on client. When not on a project, you are on the bench but still get paid, you just bill your hours to Education rather than a client. This can take a week or more sometimes but in my experience, my staffing manager was very good about placing me expeditiously. Worst case scenario is you get a week or two to do online courses or just relax to be honest. I cant speak definitively on layoff potential but so far so good on my end. Work/life balance is very good for the most part, especially considering the interim periods between projects. GBS also just announced flexible hours which basically means you can choose your schedule as long as you bill the required amount of hours, which in my experience is often 9 per day. This is strangely high due to GBS not paying that well relative to the competition but I suppose its compensation for bench periods. I would overall recommend trying to find a position elsewhere because youre somewhat constantly moving around and switching teams. Some people may enjoy that, but I personally would prefer to form strong bonds with my teammates and be able to work on a longer term project, rather than being contracted out for small to medium jobs. Generally, the work isn’t very exciting and the pay is low. The people are overall good, however, and that is the reason I have stuck around. Aside from that though, its not very promising or engaging, in my personal opinion. Anyway, I hope this helped in some way and I wish your wife the best of luck with whatever route she ends up taking!

Hi there, I recommend joining GBS. IBM is now investing heavily on hybrid cloud and AI… good time to get into these areas. They are comparable to other large tech companies. Are you joining in USA?

GBS is a independent consultant department. You won’t be working directly on any IBM product or cloud infra. Most of the time is build full stack service for client.