Former IBM'er here. I worked in Power Software Development within STG, and was laid off alongside 3,300 other US employees this past June. After first quarter results became public, employee morale within STG pretty much sank. Contractors were cut first, then a number of benefits were either reduced or postponed till the end of the year. It became pretty obvious that some drastic cuts were about to happen (now known internally as Project Mercury), but I made the decision not to jump ship, hoping that my performance as a solid contributor would see me through.

On June 12 I was laid off anyway, and while I was saddened to leave, part of me was relieved to be moving on. Based off my first-hand knowledge, I can attest that IBM is a huge company, and as such it's very easy to get lost in the day-to-day grind and have your skills as a Software Engineer stagnate. The company did not value employee creativity like I thought it would, and internally teams are constantly absorbed in office/management politics, to the point it ends up taking a negative toll on developer productivity. There were many occasions where I wanted to move fast and resolve customer issues or system bugs, but was slowed by the enormous overhead/red tape involved in making even a simple change.

So if I could give one piece of advice to CEO Ginni Rometty it would be this: Transform IBM into an organization that can move fast to benefit the customer. I believe many of the struggles IBM is currently facing stem from an organization structure that is slow and inefficient, part of which is due to low employee morale (it's a little hard to focus on your work when you're constantly fearing cuts/layoffs).

Fortunately for me I got back up on my feet pretty quickly, and landed a better paying job that values employee creativity. I still keep up with IBM news through the IBM Alliance, and feel for a number of IBM friends and former STG colleagues who are most likely affected by this furlough.