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.

Pros

People are very bright and helpful, it has a very good team environment. The pay is good, not much to complain about.

Cons

Cant really think of any complaints about MS, I guess it's next to impossible to get to the top considering how many people work there.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up hte good owrk

Pros

Amazing managers who really understood that their primary role within a company is not to make themselves look better, but to grow you as a person and as a worker. I had nothing but great experiences working at MS, and still feel a bit of regret in leaving.

Cons

It was difficult to reconcile my personal life and work with regards to transferring locations. Once you're in a location, you're pretty much set. It's not a huge drawback, but it was ultimately the reason I left.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on quality of all products, and do a better job at influencing hardware development with your partners. Microsoft does not make much hardware, but when they do it's actually pretty good (Xbox360 red-ring aside). But the biggest problem is not in the software, but the fact that it has to run on such a multitude of hardware that MS does not make. If instead they influenced the hardware makers, or even made more products of their own, MS would have more of a chance to focus on quality.

Oh, and do something about those stock prices. I'm still a shareholder.

Pros

The environment is rich in resoures. Benefits are good. Health insurance is outstanding. Very diverse work environment. Good cafeterias, cheap food.

Cons

The work environment is flooded with cheap overseas labor. Salaries are low. Review structure is completely opaque. Promotion paths are opaque. Employees are at the whim of thier managers. Microsoft Managers are the best double talkers in the world. They receive special training.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit taking initiatives. Managers and employees at all levels are required to initiate just about anything. At each level, employee initiatives are driven by their managers initiatives. They are so desperate to take on an initiative that will let them stand out, that managers often take on tasks that make no sense and pass them on to subordinates.

Pros

Fantastic place for an engineer.
Best place to take your analytical and design skills to their utmost.
Good benefits package.

Cons

Salaries are bad. Real bad. Microsoft makes you pay them for working there. Microsoft DOES NOT PAY.
Even if you are in sales, you are not getting what your peers are getting at other places. You work at Microsoft because you would enjoy the work, definitely even though it's life suckingly hard, not for the salary, not at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus. Start shutting down certain products. Microsoft does not have to develop everything that everyone will ever use. Focus.