71–80 of 96 posts
I was fond of IBM (I still have their centennial book, which I find very interesting). I was fond of IBM... Until I had the change of being interviewed by one of their HR people in the local branch (nothern Italy). That was the worst interview experience ever. This woman called me as soon as I emailed her some details about me, including my phone number, without any kind of prior agreement or scheduling, and puth me…
s/Millennials/Generation Z/ at this point. Millennials are all in their 30s and older now.
> s/Millennials/Generation Z/ at this point. I don't think that works either, Gen Z are either really early in their career and only making up a tiny fraction of the industry or not in any career at all yet, it's hardly the demographic IBM needs to appeal to. As an older millennial my hair is starting to take on a grayish tinge and ageism in the industry is becoming a direct concern, so this can only lower my opinion…
Why do they still have such huge numbers? Can't they make the company work with just 10% of those?
Firing talent because of age is not so smart I think. Of course I don't know who they fire, etc. But I'm young, yeah, and I want to distance myself from IBM products. Why? I'v been setting IBM Tivoli/Spectrum protect to backup client computers and, ugh, is it ugly, unfriendly and complex piece of software. I'v also touched the server part. Maybe it's just me, the windows guy (but who loves scripting) and it is more a…
Of course, the explanation is BS, everybody sees that. But I want to comment that as a young mainframer (I started 14 years ago at the age of 26, with a big IBM competitor), I really enjoyed working with older people. They work quite hard (they have survived lots of changes in the organization, and that - in majority of cases - means that their contribution was appreciated somewhere), often are less crazy (they are s…
Worst IT practices and work ethics you could imagine. Lost source code, no comments/documentation, no tests, no monitoring, no benchmarks ... most of the work was done by people without a degree in anything and stayed around for decades. It's not well thought engineering.
I enjoyed working on mainframes, I still think it's amazing technology. Some of my colleagues where the nicest people I ever met, where very skilled and taught me a lot.
But I am now a DevOps working with open source, cloud computing & containerization, everything is nicer and a lot more interesting. And I don't have to fight everyone anymore because I am the one who will have to maintain the crap of retired people (most of the time I would hit a brick wall trying to explain what is IT in the 21st century).
Of course, the explanation is BS, everybody sees that. But I want to comment that as a young mainframer (I started 14 years ago at the age of 26, with a big IBM competitor), I really enjoyed working with older people. They work quite hard (they have survived lots of changes in the organization, and that - in majority of cases - means that their contribution was appreciated somewhere), often are less crazy (they are s…
I'm curious, how many real competitors are there to IBM in the mainframe space? From what I've seen the majority of the products in use are basically IBM only.
In mainframe hardware, IBM doesn't have much direct competitors. In mainframe software, there are many but most of the are much smaller than IBM, so it is often more symbiotic than competitive relationship.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious, how many real competitors are there to IBM in the mainframe space? From what I've seen the majority of the products in use are basically IBM only.
There used to be quite a few different mainframes on the market. HP/Tandem had their Non-stop systems which was perhaps the most distinct competitor - but there were quite a few companies competing in the space. However, IBM has dominated this market for as long as I can remember and today I believe they are the only ones making mainframe computers.
Isn't this simply suppy-demand economics? Have you ever seen a comment on HN to the effect of "yeah, if you are in the US and not already working for one of the big tech companies, at this point that just means you are not good enough to be working for them" (implying they should have been interviewing there as frequently as possible until they land in one of them, and also that every other software job falls well sh…
> International Business Machines Corp. has fired as many as 100,000 employees in the last few years in an effort to boost its appeal to millennials > “The company hires 50,000 employees each year.” > The number of IBM employees has fallen to its lowest point in six years, with 350,600 global workers at the end of 2018 -- a 19% reduction since 2013. The fact that a company can have such high turnover and still functi…
Of course, the explanation is BS, everybody sees that. But I want to comment that as a young mainframer (I started 14 years ago at the age of 26, with a big IBM competitor), I really enjoyed working with older people. They work quite hard (they have survived lots of changes in the organization, and that - in majority of cases - means that their contribution was appreciated somewhere), often are less crazy (they are s…
One day I have to take the time to write a blog post on how I started my engineering career at IBM working on mainframe at 21, then freaked out 6 years later in one of the biggest bank in the world where most of those older people where incompetent and judgemental. Everything was dinosaurs in constant politics and lies on both side, vendors and clients. Worst IT practices and work ethics you could imagine. Lost sourc…