Microsoft – “one of the best large places to work in Seattle area”

Pros

opportunities to move to other projects inside company (not easy but possible). good health plan especially for people with families, gaining experience of shipping software used by many around the world, decent cafeterias, PRO sports club

Cons

hierarchical structure of the company, stack ranking practices, pay level awareness, micromanagement, doubts about long term prospects of the company, layoffs, limited freedom to select ways how to do stuff, high cost of errors leads to abundance of processes and procedures in many projects

Advice to Senior Management

flatten the company, reduce number of levels, promote peer review. reward successful teams rather than the art of writeup of yearly commitments, more freedom to move within company, improve software reuse and sharing across company, provide top notch software development tools, computers, monitors, come up with new innovative projects rather than chasing established leaders