Microsoft Reviews in Redmond, WA

Pros

Amazing health insurance and wide range of other benefits make it really hard to contemplate leaving without starting to do the figures in your head. Great diversity of people inside the company, lots of stuff going on that you can get involved in even if it's not your direct job. Lots and lots of interesting people!

Cons

The 'old Microsoft' of being direct and straightforward in voicing concerns, proposing alternatives or opposing the direction being taken is truly gone. If you don't toe the line in your group, you'll become the sacrificial lamb (especially since every group needs one)!

Performance 'reviews' have little to no impact on your salary or prospects for advancement; it's all about whether your boss's boss's boss knows who you are and whether you are viewed as 'good' or 'bad'. Not to mention person leading the group must play their game well enough to get funding for promotions, or hand out career-limitingly low review scores to people who do perfectly good work. Once you find out about 'stack ranking' and that your yearly goals aren't even read by anyone who makes a decision about your review score, you might have a hard time taking this process seriously.

It can be very depressing to work there, given the tendency for upper management to do or say short-sighted or obviously misleading things in public. Not as embarrassing for someone who is not a technologist, but if you are an engineer you will be the sounding board for all of your technical friends & family's complaints.

Advice to Senior Management

Please, for the love of god, bring back some semblance of highly technical leadership instead of MBAs in suits. It's pretty incredible to have someone who understands highly technical concepts leading your group; it's very depressing to see them being replaced one by one with someone who barely understands what your group's software does.

Pros

You can find a wide range of jobs spanning the company, including overseas (if you're willing to switch to a subsidiary). Great benefits (although health will be much less than what it is today come the end of FY13 (July 2012 to June 2013). Some very smart people around and cool products (based on a wide variety of tastes).

Cons

Getting reorged. In my particular case I was reorged more than 16 times in 6 years. Not in itself a wonderful thing, but in the past two years I was reorged enough times where I was doing something completely different every six months. And the way Microsoft works, you are calibrated against your discipline and if you've been doing something well for a year you'll nearly always trump four months of good work. And not gaining in your job level of a certain window of time will damage your long-term prospects.

Advice to Senior Management

It varies heavily by organization, but my biggest issue was getting reorged so many times that I felt ineffective at doing what I'm good at. How can management address a situation like mine (not uncommon) to ensure I get a fair shake at success?

Pros

good place to work as long as you have a good boss

Cons

departments and employees are more interested in making their numbers and committments than in doing what's right for the company overall. So this doesn't foster a cooperative environment. people spend an awful lot of time and energy "reporting up" versus doing actual work.

Advice to Senior Management

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Pros

Some of the brightest brains in the industry.
Lot of knowledge and scope
Variety of technologies to work on.

Cons

Performance Review System is bad.
Promotions system is not transparent
Compensation is not good
Management leaders dont have technical expertise.
Lot of politics

Advice to Senior Management

Promote team work and reduce rivalry.
Have more collaboration between groups.
Have more technical people in the management ladder

Pros

At the end of the day this is still one of, or the, largest software companies in the world. There are incredible opportunities to work on software that is used by an incredible number of people world wide.

Cons

Management has become entirely disconnected from the workforce, at times it seems that they are stuck in the late nineties and think that employees are becoming millionaires overnight and should be grateful for the priviledge of working at the company. The reality is that the shareprice has been flat or worse for over 10 years and the job has become a way of paying the bills for most employees

Advice to Senior Management

The board should resign for failing to ask Ballmer to resign. Every employee at partner level or above should undergo a complete 360 review to keep their job. Cronyism needs to be eliminated root and branch.

Pros

- Good benefits
- Smart folks
- Pacific Northwest is a nice place if you have a family

Cons

- Office politics
- Lots of internal tools/technology. You don't get experience on industry standard tools.
- Small town feeling, not a good place for singles.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to break down the company for better management.

Pros

There are some very smart, passionate people working there. When you're on a good team it doesn't seem like work. Employees feel excited and empowered. The pay and benefits are good and many people have their own office.

Cons

Your career growth and rewards are highly dependent on how well you get along with you manager, how much they'll fight for you, and how well they know how to work the system and how effective they are at it. Depending on your organization, there can be a lot of reorgs and your experience and time at Microsoft account for 0 if the leadership doesn't know you. Lately, Microsoft has been making sweeping changes such as "a person must be at X number level to have Y position" despite whether or not individuals have been working in and doing well at Y positions for years. Rather than promote the individual to the new level requirement, they are told they can no longer have that position.

Advice to Senior Management

Changes in leadership have changed the company from a place where employees felt open to challenge each other and do amazing things to a company where employees just want to work the system for promotions and titles. Employees in various orgs fear that challenging their management leads to destroyed career paths. Leadership should not just look at those who manage up well, but look down into the company and see how the culture is changing...and not in a good way.

Pros

Very flexible in time and vacations

Cons

Work/life balance is not available if you're looking for a promotion

Advice to Senior Management

Encourage and coach your employee to excell

Pros

The scale of the products like Windows, Office, Xbox, etc is very inspiring and challenging. You'll appreciate the process of designing, building and testing.

Cons

Progress might not be as fast-paced as some startups or smaller companies. Your responsibilities too might be limited and it takes hard work and a lot of time to gain recognition and move up the ladder.

Advice to Senior Management

Make the review process more transparent. Also, communicate the rationale and perspective behind big decisions. Make the workplace more social.

Pros

Ton of opportunities to advance in professional expertise. Support to move around within the company. Excellent benefits, and good pay package

Cons

Limited coordination between product groups. Limited interaction with senior leadership. Very limited opportunities to look outside and implement best practices.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on cross-collaboration between product groups. Make compromises as necessary fo rthe sake of consistency of operations. Ask Ballmer to leave - his leadership hurts the company's image.