Microsoft Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – 1. If you love tech, this is a great place. No doubt you'll talk tech (mostly the MSFT stack) from enterprise to consumer - from PCs to phones to Xboxes - from datacenter to desktop.

2. What were GREAT benefits are now VERY GOOD (took a small step down) but still probably better than you'll find at 99% of large corporations. If you've got family - the value of the benefits is even higher. 401k match is nice.

3. Even with it's struggles MSFT is still a cash printing machine. This means if you can keep your nose clean and do reasonable work, you can have a stable job, pay your bills, feed your family, and not worry (too much) about layoffs. The stock you own likely won't tank, but probably won't go up much either. You'll get a bonus each year and some stock. It's a decent life if you aren't looking to light the world on fire.

Cons – Brand on Your Resume: After many years of losing market share and struggling to be at the front end of innovation and the fact that there's 90,000 employees, don't think MSFT is necessarily going to be attractive on your resume to more agile and smaller companies.

Managing Your Career: Make you say this out loud so it registers - 90,000 employees work there. Double that for vendors. It is VERY hard to "stand out" and move up in the company. Don't expect your manager to be much of an advocate or enabler to help you meet your career goals - they are basically trying to survive the stack rank every year too. Not familiar with the stack rank? Check out the 2012 Vanity Fair article called "Microsoft's Lost Decade".

Advice to Senior Management – I'll type it here - but I don't they are listening...
1. Help proven talent move laterally in the company for new opportunities.
2. Kill/evolve the stack rank. Here's basically how it's viewed:. 30% of the company gets 1s and 2s - and they are happy. 50% get 3s and that basically feels like getting a "C" in school. This sucks for talented people when a multitude of UNCONTROLLABLE conditions keep you from getting into 1 or 2 range. The 20% getting anything below a 3 are walking dead. In summary, 70% of the company walk away from the review cycle feeling like crap. This is no good.

After 10 years, I'm leaving - it's just a matter of time until I find the right opportunity. I need to find a company spends 90% of it's time building technology experiences, as opposed to 90% of its time building PowerPoints. And I expect to refuse the exit interview - because if you really cared what I thought, you wouldn't ask me after I decided to leave.

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than a year

Pros – Fun projects to work on, exciting new things happening and always encouraged to be innovative. Always something new happening.

Cons – Some people aren't fond of the performance review system here. It can make you a little paranoid, but as long as you are doing your job, you should be fine.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft as a contractor

Pros – A long time, be glad to work

Cons – There is not much innovation

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Flexible hours, rewarding, work life balance

Cons – Email jail is real and I live there

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – The company is filled with brilliant and intelligent people. Microsoft has all type of teams and plenty of opportunities for all kinds of work.

Cons – Growth is slow and the review process is not that good. Also the culture in some teams is very rigid. Not easy to influence and bring on change.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – No limits on how far you can grow.
Great opportunity to move from one role to other roles.
Stable, meaningful work.
You can change the world from here.

Cons – Performance review system encourages bad behavior and wastes time.
A lot of focus on simplifying for management, not much tolerance for subtle nuances.

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of the performance stack rank system. Don't fire long term veteran good performers because of where they fall in the stack ranks.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Solid career paths, good pay, good benefits

Cons – Long hours and a horrible commute if you live in Seattle.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus more on results rather than shiny frameworks

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Able to move around, great environment.

Cons – Flat stock price for the last decade.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Good pay, global opportunities, some very good products

Cons – Bureaucratic, Slow to embrace new technology trends, Innovator's Dilemma classic case of being wedded to Windows and Office monopolies

Advice to Senior Management – Change employee review system

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good work experience. Have opportunity to experience everything in a product cycle. Good work/life balance.

Cons – It is hard to get promotion if not in the right group.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company