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Rating Details
Career Opportunities
3.7
Communication
3.5
Compensation & Benefits
4.1
Employee Morale
3.8
Recognition & Feedback
3.5
Senior Leadership
3.2
Work/Life Balance
4.0
Fairness & Respect
3.4
Overall Rating
CEO Approval
Steve Ballmer
CEO and Director
46% “Approve”
Details
“Do you approve of the way this person is
handling the job of leading this company?”
463 responses
(117 'Not Sure')
46% Approve
29% Disapprove
1 - 10 of 478 Reviews
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Jul 27, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
2.0
Communication
3.5
Compensation & Benefits
4.5
Employee Morale
3.5
Recognition & Feedback
2.0
Senior Leadership
1.0
Work/Life Balance
3.5
Fairness & Respect
2.0
8 of 8 people found this helpful
Pros
The people! Diverse, intelligent, opinionated and extremely knowledgeable. If you want to be surrounded by people that actually *know* every single thing about computers and software, there's no other place.
Microsoft has many worlds inside itself. If you change from one team to another, is like changing from one company to another, everything is totally different. So if you're bored with one aspect of technology, change to a different group and learn about other stuff without leaving company.
The benefits are mostly great (see exceptions at the list of downsides), in special the medical benefits.
It is inspiring to work in products that are used by millions (and in some cases billions) of people.
Cons
The worst problem we have is our senior leadership. What's the point of working extreme long hours to contribute to the company when they come with preposterous ideas like buying Yahoo!?
As for the benefits, the top 900 people earn loads of stocks that vest immediately (1/3 immediately, then the other thirds in 2 years) while for everyone else the stocks vest after 1 year, then spread in the next 5 years. Last year we've spent 1 billion dollars in stock for the top 900!
There's no transparency on how people's performance are reviewed, the only clear thing is that it is a popularity contest where the management friends are rewarded and everyone else hang on tight because of the benefits. Then if you spend some time without promotion, your chances for promotions diminish dramatically because you're labeled "with low career velocity".
Internally we know that we are just like IBM in the 80s: a company that just got rid of a host of anti trust issues, with a huge hierarchy, ossified processes all over and so very slow to respond to the competition.
That's because the only way to grow professionaly is by becoming a manager. So people that should and people that shouldn't be a manager are fighting hand and fist to become one. Then we have more hierarchy, and the monster feeds itself...
Advice to Senior Management
Give up the Yahoo! adventures.
Cut the hierarchy: we don't need so many layers of management! In my career at Microsoft, the minimum distance I got from Stever Ballmer is 9. That's because some managers in the chain left Microsoft after pocketing their millions.
Aug 11, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
2.0
Communication
3.0
Compensation & Benefits
4.0
Employee Morale
2.0
Recognition & Feedback
2.0
Senior Leadership
2.0
Work/Life Balance
5.0
Fairness & Respect
3.0
4 of 4 people found this helpful
Pros
Nice benefits package. You can work average if you expect average payment. If you can find the "right group", if such exists, you can grow in the company.
Cons
Too political place. Everything has to make everybody happy, which makes things not work after all. Usually you get stuck with lousy explanations on why you can't get a raise, a promotion or bonus. Most of the time the managers are "with their hands tied" to get you the rewards.
Advice to Senior Management
Reward the people that actually think about the solutions and try to make it right. Do not praise the person with the best fluffy speech only. Spread the money a little bit more. Getting 500K+ to partners and dry the "ants" will make the anthill die in the long run.
Aug 19, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
2.0
Communication
2.5
Compensation & Benefits
2.5
Employee Morale
1.5
Recognition & Feedback
1.0
Senior Leadership
3.0
Work/Life Balance
4.0
Fairness & Respect
1.5
3 of 3 people found this helpful
Pros
good benefits, nobody ever gets fired, freedom to work on interesting areas, did I mention good benefits...
Cons
low pay relative to industry, low stock awards, ineffective performance evalution system subject to favoritism, stagnant middle management closes off opportunities for those coming up
Advice to Senior Management
get rid of the people who are sitting in the middle layers who have been at the company for 10 years. It prevents up-and-comers from taking roles that challenge and reward them. Spread the wealth that is generated beyond the Partners. Microsoft likes to say that it pays at the 60% band for the industry, but that's not sufficient to keep top performers around.
Aug 7, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
3.5
Communication
4.0
Compensation & Benefits
4.0
Employee Morale
4.0
Recognition & Feedback
4.5
Senior Leadership
4.5
Work/Life Balance
4.0
Fairness & Respect
4.0
5 of 6 people found this helpful
Pros
breath of product groups to chose from, well defined career path, brand recognition, opens up opportunities elsewhere once you have msft on resume. great benefits package - proclub, health insurance, dental coverage. large campus with football, basketball, volleyball fields - lot of sports leagues, flexible time, option to work remotely, presence all over the world - opportunity to travel overseas to take short term assignment or projects. flexibility and say in the kind of work you do, especially as a developer. ease in moving between different groups - great internal career website to facilitate that. one of the few places where people are generally smart and level headed
Cons
large company, deal with red-tape and bureocrasy
Advice to Senior Management
get your act together, fire the incompetent middle management, flatten hierarchy, bring fairness in to the review process,
Aug 20, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
2.5
Communication
2.5
Compensation & Benefits
2.5
Employee Morale
3.0
Recognition & Feedback
3.0
Senior Leadership
2.5
Work/Life Balance
2.5
Fairness & Respect
2.5
3 of 4 people found this helpful
Pros
Fortune 500 company, stability, great health benefits. Smart people,
Cons
Company is so large, the opportunities for advancement are slim. Also, the opportunity for innovation and for personal growth are quite limited. No time is given for side projects, unless company sanctioned, and therefore thinking outside the box is discouraged. Also, there is a two tiered system of employment where contingent staff are treated quite differently than full time employees. Because of the court decree, MS has to do some of the things it does with contingent staff, but I don't like this arrangement because it treats experienced workers as temporary hired help, when they should be treated with dignity and respect. They do a great job, and deserve the same benefits as any other worker.
Advice to Senior Management
Hire more full time employees, don't hire so many contractors. It creates bad morale to treat so many excellent workers as second class citizens.
Sep 6, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
2.0
Communication
4.0
Compensation & Benefits
2.5
Employee Morale
3.0
Recognition & Feedback
2.5
Senior Leadership
1.0
Work/Life Balance
4.0
Fairness & Respect
1.5
0 of 0 people found this helpful
Pros
The Medical Insurance.
Some of the people.
A day at MS support is like gaining 3 days of experience somewhere else
Cons
The pay sucks.
It comes down to who you know, not what you know.
The new job titles are a total joke - we get to see who make what. Now I'm really pissed.
Advice to Senior Management
Flush anyone associated with Indian Management Styles, HP, or IBM.
Sep 6, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
1.5
Communication
1.5
Compensation & Benefits
3.5
Employee Morale
1.5
Recognition & Feedback
1.5
Senior Leadership
1.0
Work/Life Balance
3.5
Fairness & Respect
1.0
0 of 0 people found this helpful
Pros
Microsoft is a great entry-level place to work. The company is engaged in a loosely-coupled strategy to push work towards the least expensive person they can hire. (Note that they just love Ivy League and anyone from a top-tier consulting company!) The issues that need solving at Microsoft are monumental, and truly worthy of your time and effort to attempt to 'solve'. And there’s technology being developed that nobody else in the industry would even attempt.
Cons
The Curve: despite all you've heard about that being in the past, it's here and bigger than ever. Which means you have to have a manager who will fight for your promotion and is under pressure to keep employees at the levels hired, unless they've attracted senior level attention. Be bright, ambitious, and knife your way to the top: it's classic. Of course, the downside is you have to work in that environment.
The top 10% of the curve can be rewarded well, even lavishly, but performance won't be enough; you need to sail past your peers, so in a really quality group, you're screwed, somebody has to fill the middle or even the bottom of the curve. Microsoft has always been severely hierarchical - teams are for drones to follow orders.
Having 90,000 employees makes hierarchies seductively attractive for weak bureaucrats, and Microsoft does believe that excellence can be driven by the top 10%, which, if promotion was meritocracy-driven: maybe. But where smooth-talking politicians are easier to promote, the leadership can be hit and miss.
Microsoft, even for the fast-moving superstars, offers no training other than what's gleaned on the job, and given that a majority of top managers have never worked anywhere else and have no other perspective than 'drinking the corporate Kool-Aid', the probability of working for a bozo who is scared stiff and unable to function or promote team members, is, unfortunately, pretty freakin’ high.
Microsoft needs an intellectual enema: we have legions of people standing on their thumbs one minute and then racing 14 hour days trying to make things function. We have an obfuscating layer of untrained managers who squirm and hide when bold decisions or true leadership is required. The hierarchy that semi-functioned when Microsoft was small, no longer works. It causes huge inefficiencies and lost shareholder value as the numbers outstrip the ability of hierarchies to offer enlighten direction. As painful as it would be for Microsoft employees, the company needs a IBM-style crisis to force a new look at what businesses it makes sense to pursue, and how to motivate employees to create really noteworthy software.
Make sure you’re not working for Microsoft when that happens.
Advice to Senior Management
Devolve authority to middle management (hell, even to senior VPs) after making even a vestigial effort to communicate a compelling strategic vision;
Have a strategic vision, not today’s muddle through to another year planning;
Put the urgency on replacing business leaders who can't;
Find a balanced business/technology model that is more customer centric (even aware);
Find a ranking plateau model (think SAS) instead of the a curve so you don't build in tremendous disincentives for cooperation, and increase employee loyalty;
Clean house of the old school managers who have earned millions and are phoning in their leadership, make turnover of underperforming senior managers, and recruiting experienced external senior manager candidates a priority, so we have a diverse experience base; (Why is diversity only a objective for entry level employees?)
Sep 6, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
2.0
Communication
3.0
Compensation & Benefits
4.0
Employee Morale
1.5
Recognition & Feedback
3.5
Senior Leadership
1.0
Work/Life Balance
5.0
Fairness & Respect
1.5
0 of 0 people found this helpful
Pros
The benefits are fantasitc. Time off and folks are smart.
Cons
It's very political. The people you know gets you promoted, not how hard you work. Suck up as much to your manager, you'll do very well in this company. Beer is good. My manager has a fridge full of it in his office.
Advice to Senior Management
Fire yourself. Reorg HR, the talent their hiring in now at higher levels and pay is widely known within the company, and folks like myslef, the ones that are loyal and underpaid are realizing it and leaving. Bye bye Microsoft.
Sep 5, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
3.5
Communication
3.5
Compensation & Benefits
3.5
Employee Morale
3.5
Recognition & Feedback
1.5
Senior Leadership
2.0
Work/Life Balance
3.5
Fairness & Respect
2.0
0 of 0 people found this helpful
Pros
- surrounded by super smart people
- great place to learn
- ability to make huge impact in any market
- flexible work environment
- opportunity to move into other roles
Cons
- review process is lousy
- work very hard just to be average, with no clarity on how to exceed
- people are often overly analytical for very little gain
- way too much email (100-150 emails per day is average)
- inability to move quickly because you have to loop in many groups/people
- quality work is not rewarded
Advice to Senior Management
- some should retire (we need young blood)
- get rid of lousy managers (they are poison and they affect lots of good employees)
- "everything" can't be strategic
- focus and invest in products/business that reflect our core competencies
- kill non-profitable businesses
- reward your employees better (too many unhappy faces)
Sep 5, 2008
Details
Career Opportunities
1.0
Communication
2.0
Compensation & Benefits
3.0
Employee Morale
3.0
Recognition & Feedback
1.5
Senior Leadership
2.0
Work/Life Balance
3.0
Fairness & Respect
2.5
0 of 0 people found this helpful
Pros
I enjoy the people I work with and the challenging environment. There is never a dull moment and always something new coming at you... usually at the speed of a VP escalation.
Cons
The decision process has become so convoluted that getting anything done becomes impossible. There are too many conflicting agendas across groups preventing truly amazing things from happening with the level of knowledge that is employed at Microsoft.
Advice to Senior Management
Need better transparency across the organzations. The catch phrase of cross-group collaboration has been tossed around for many years; however the idea simply hasn't taken shape. This has to come from the top down where senior management set the tone for how the organizations interact. When there is division about strategy among Sr. Management and the Execs... it is felt by the folks in the trenches.
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