Microsoft Reviews in Redmond, WA

Pros

Smart employees with interesting backgrounds

Cons

Management sucks and it all goes down from here

Advice to Senior Management

Get a life

Pros

Good learning place. Jobs are challenging. Great people to work with.

Cons

Hierarchies are too deep and it is difficult to employees to influence the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Move faster and innovate more.

Pros

Benefits are amazing - but are changing in January to be more in line with the rest of the world.

Cons

Senior Managers are in it for themselves, unless you are well connected - you have no chance of movement - even between groups managers hold your future in their hands and limit movement based on their needs to keep you around.

Pros

Excellent opportunity to build major software products, and make a big impact. Lots of smart people keep you challenged if you want to improve your technical, product development, and leadership skills. Compensation is quite favorable if you're in the top 40%.

Cons

You need to be a self-starter and not assume that you would be given a project that would grow your career. However, if you prove yourself, then you will be rewarded handsomely. You also need to be aware of some office politics, which is natural in big firms - this becomes more important as you move up the chain. The length in level at mid-management (principal) levels is 3-5 years at each ladder level for 80+% of the population. Health benefits are not co-pay free any more.

Advice to Senior Management

Microsoft is an active product development company, not a sales company. Put more product development people (with good business acumen) in top positions rather than people with business experience only. This will help Microsoft regain the leadership position in product innovation in the industry. Management has taken some recent positive steps in this direction. Every time our products are innovative, we have struck a chord with our consumers at a completely emotional level (e.g. Windows 95, xbox kinect, etc.). Don't be afraid to take user-perceivable big bets in products that define industry direction. There have been some good recent steps in this direction (e.g. Windows 8), but more is required.

Pros

Their benefits are unmatched! They have amazing benefits and their base pay isn't too bad.

Cons

In their IT department, they have yet to come into the 21st century of Microsoft. They still expect people to work a minimum of 10 hours a day - if you aren't then you aren't considered to be doing a good job. In IT, your manager will tell you weekly that you are doing exactly what is expected and then a month before reviews are due, they will tell you that while you are meeting expectations, you aren't wowing them and that's not good enough. Also, if you come down with a major illness, Microsoft has a tendency to hang on to you just long enough to avoid a lawsuit and then fire you.

Advice to Senior Management

Microsoft needs to take the personal views out of their review process. It need to be did the person do their job or not? They also need to level the playing field and set expectations with managers that NO ONE can meet every single one of the possible guidelines for a role. In IT, the expectation is you must meet every one of your guidelines. There needs to be a major overhaul within Microsoft's IT department and a serious house cleaning at the upper levels of management.

Pros

Excellent pay, good benefits, and free sodas.

Cons

Upper management rarely concerned with projects or teams.
Right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
Large, bureaucratic organization that moves at the speed of continental drift.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to what's going on in your own department and stop worrying about your career or your house on Orcas Island for 10 minutes.

Pros

work with smart people, requires you to be on your toes

Cons

Microsoft has gotten very bureaucratic and decision making is slow. Also, no one wants to collaberate at all. No one respects Steve Ballmer and most can't wait for him to go adn this is a drag on morale. It is depressing to work for a company when the stock price has remained unchanged or over a decade.

Advice to Senior Management

Replace the chairman, require teams to work together and punish those who don't.

Pros

Access to cutting edge technology
Many ways to move horizontally
Good benefits
Smart people

Cons

Review system is broken: %20 percent of all employees must get a 4 or 5 (on a scale of 1=best, 5=worst) on their yearly review, regardless of accomplishments
Not nearly enough advertising for consumer products
100% health care coverage is going away
Way too many meetings

Advice to Senior Management

Fire Ballmer & Brummel
More TV ads for consumer products

Pros

There are some great people at Microsoft

Cons

Managment seems more interested in keeping their power than improving processes/Microsoft.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop the rule by fear, when the economy turns people will remember the last years.

Pros

Free parking, beverage, and flexible hours
Reasonable compensation package
Opportunities within the company

Cons

Lack of long-term strategy and planning that causes the company lose the leading position
Misread too many market trend that causes the company play catch-up all the time
Company got too big and lost its flexibility

Advice to Senior Management

Change the CEO