Pros

Excellent benefits- transport, healthcare, work from home, cafeteria
Training- numerous great training sessions on messaging, positioning and options to expand

Cons

Slow product cycles do not keep up with Industry- 2-3 year product cycle means that the pace of innovation and progression is very slow
Laggards and awareness of broader indusrty is low- Sometime you feel that they don't pay attention to important trends in the industry that will bite them in the long term.

Advice to Senior Management

Balmer needs to go and introduce a CEO who can manage this behemoth- the only other suggestion would be split the company into atleast 3 pieces- Windows, Office & Entertainment and Devices.

Pros

Microsoft varies immensely from division to division. The core divisions (like Windows, Office, etc) each hire thousands of engineers. You will spend all your time working on some tiny aspect of one big, great product. If you are cool with that, and cool with the idea that ten years from now you'll be doing very similar work for just a little more money than what you now make, Microsoft can be great for you. It is a comfortable big company with good pay. You'll have decent work-life balance most of the time (again that can vary from group to group).

Cons

As an SDE at Microsoft, above average smarts are not really going to take you anywhere. You might end up in a group doing something cool and cutting edge, but your career trajectory and compensation are going to be the same as folks in some mediocre group elsewhere in the company. That can kill motivation over time. Microsoft has become too big and unlike the 90s it is no longer the most preferred tech employer. They no longer get the "best and the brightest". They hire way more SDETs and PMs than they need.

Advice to Senior Management

The senior management almost exclusively consists of people who have been at the company for twenty years. While most of you are great, you still need to get senior executives from outside Microsoft who can bring in a new perspective and provide better leadership in emerging areas like the online space.

Pros

a. Very knowledgeable people.
b. Access to technology.
c. Excellent benefits.
d. Seattle region is beautiful all year round.
e. Good diversity.

Cons

a. Review system is ridiculous, only the managers' good friends are recognized.
b. There are lots of politics at the middle management level, so many times the project that you've worked hard to complete might be cancelled just because one mid-manager did not like the other mid-manager.
c. So many layers of management, it's bewildering.
d. So many cost-cutting measurements, but
d.1 Marketing Managers go to Paris with their espouses for a week with all expenses paid by the company.
d.2 1 billion (with a B) dollars were spent in bonuses with the top management, even with their horrible results.
e. There's no way for someone to grow a career unless you go to management.
f. There's a reorg every 6 months where everything changes, including your manager. So you need to re-work your relationship with the manager, who already has his/her group of friends to protect.
g. And last but not least: the specter of another layoff always looming at the horizon.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Flatten the structure, put those mid-managers to work!
2. Change the review system so peer opinion is valued more than manager's opinion.
3. Please say once and for all if we'll have more layoffs.
4. Resign! You did not make the cut in 10 years, didn't work until now and it will not work in the future!

Pros

Resource and investment for doing big things. Smart people work there. Diversity of opportunities within one company. Great benefits and a strong diverse culture.

Cons

The process for making decision is bogged down in long planning cycles and insufficient time to see organizational change actually happen. The focus on promotion and performance is focused on communications style and not results. There is spoken concern for the employee, but little representation in the employee satisfaction driven by those who are promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to focus on understanding what is going on by listening to employees. most biz review processes are headlines that make the speaker look good and do not impart the understanding needed to make strategic decision. Unlike when i joined, mgmt is not interested in their businesses any more and focused more on what is happening above them, so they can get promoted. In addition, the review process, the lay-offs and most any other part of the msft process for managing employees, makes employees fear for their jobs. this needs to change. Finally, next time you choose to lay-off people, make it matter. 5% was not enough to impact bottom line, trickling it out of 12 months only deepened the negative impact on all employees morale and their trust of the company.

Pros

Employees are given lots of liberty to balance their work and personal commitments, as long as the work gets done.

Cons

managed chaos. Need to leverage on networking to get things done

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the MS culture going

Pros

The salary is awesome, there are tons of challenging problems to work on such that there is basically "infinite work" - you have to gauge yourself. The weather in CA is beautiful. Everyone that works here are incredibly smart and usually highly motivated. The software Microsoft sells literally changes the world!

Cons

Career growth is somewhat limited compared to what you could possibly achieve if you started your own company, which is what I want to do eventually. The anonymity of a huge corporation can lead some people to apathy, which can be annoying when you are working your ass off.

Advice to Senior Management

We need to speed up development. Our competitors seem to always be 1-3 steps ahead of us! Other than that, I am generally satisfied with managment.

Pros

Great, smart, friendly people, big company involved in many areas (a pro and a con), excellent benefits.

Cons

In the 10 years I've been at Microsoft, the company has more than doubled in size, bureacracy has increased by an order of magnitude, and many great engineers have left for better opportunities elsewhere. We're involved in EVERYTHING and screwing it up because due to the continuous over-promising and outright lying by mid-level execs to their managers. There are too many people wyo are not engineers working for this engineering company, and they are NOT the folks at the front who have accounted for virtually all of those laid off.

Advice to Senior Management

Change from the top down. If you want to "cut the 10 percent" every year, apply that to those at the top also, like Jack Welch did. And stop screwing around with these "trios" or "triads" - you can't build anything by committee.

Pros

Generous salary, ability to travel extensively if so desired. Ability to work from home.

Cons

Very poor communication between employees, resulting in job not being done properly. Chaotic management style.
Lack of teamwork.

Advice to Senior Management

Involve employees more in project decisions, management should not be so secretive towards their employees and their employees might in turn have better morale and work more efficiently.

Pros

An opportunity to be a part of something big. (Not just in company size, but in the projects they take on.) MS has the resources to invest in cutting edge tech. And, chances are your project/product will impact millions of users.

The culture is pleasantly surreal compared to the rest of the corporate world: (Casual, private offices, diverse, free soda, MS software free for work use and cheap for personal, great buildings and cafeterias.) They make you so comfortable, the line between work and home get blurred.) In general, the people you will work with, regardless of team, are some of the smartest and most job-focused you will meet in your life. Going to any other company after MS will seem like stepping into Mayberry (simpler folk, moving slower).

The benefits package is awesome, I'd guess in the top 1% of all companies. And the non-tangible benefit is an aura of respect you get when outsiders know you as an MS employee (of course, you're thinking: "I'm one of 90,000; what's the big deal?")

Cons

Sometimes the politics at MS becomes over-whelming. Their emphasis on performance for compensation and promotion gives a lot of power to direct and up-line managers. One would hope the most committed employees and those that did the most for the product are rewarded. But in reality, it is the brownnosers and drinking buddies of the right people that move up the stack.

MS pays big lip-service to flexible/remote work arrangements but it is mostly talk. This is a company that expects you there in person most of the time. Combine that with the long work hours, and it is the ideal job for young single people and divorcees.

Advice to Senior Management

Fix the lethargic stock price, or accept it and find other SIGNIFICANT ways to share the wealth with your employees. Stop hiding from Apple and take them head-on in the coolness factor (not the majority factor). Shift your focus from rewarding individuals to rewarding teams, and it will be reflected in your stock price (because that is how wall street has been judging you since 2000.)

Implement a cohesive and mandatory flex-time program to address the traffic and work-life balance issues. If even archaic bureaucratic state governments can get their act together on this, you have no excuse. Lose your infatuation with type-A, "Red" employees. These are known historically for launching companies but not so much for successfully running them. Instead of promoting them to management, manage them out or over to sales, and your company will excel in its sector.

Pros

The culture is professional yet relaxed. Generally a strong work ethic. No "clocking in" type culture, more important that your job gets done well and not that you are sitting at your desk at 8.30am every day - if you want to do your job until the wee hours the offices are open 24.7 to you. Relaxed culture, challenging, innovative. Great benefits. Exciting projects - global environment - diversity

Cons

Ambiguity about projects. Lack of recognition of a job well done. "Ramp up" for new employees can be sketchy and overwhelming - this area could be improved upon greatly.
Traveling more than 65% takes time out from family.

Advice to Senior Management

More centric new employee "ramp up" process to include systems/sharepoints/groups/ etc.