Pros

Working conditions.
People.
HR processes are actually very efficient.

Cons

Lots of KPIs.
Many Scorecards.
Fire-drills.
Do this or else.

Advice to Senior Management

Back away from the current culture of command and control before it is too late. There are many intelligent people here, who will do fantastic work if allowed to do so.

Pros

Good perks. Free snacks/drinks. Nice campus in Mountain View. Plenty of parking. Challenging, interesting work. I had a good manager that looked out for me, but that may not be the case for everyone.

Cons

You will be the disdain of most of your geek peers. The wheels seem to be falling off lately. No incentive to innovate.

Advice to Senior Management

The whole business model needs to be reevaluated. Management is holding too tightly to the old cash cows. In order to innovate you have to give something up and make some hard decisions.

Pros

Salary and Brand name are a plus. Some teams do good work. Flexi time is an advantage. Great campus and facilities.

Cons

Open door policy is a farce. If you dare to compalin, you will be out within a couple of months. Manager feedback is not appreciated. People are considered as resources, not humans.

Advice to Senior Management

Should take a look at what middle level management is getting away with. Either teams have no work or too much work.

Pros

Pros

- Good place for experienced workers
- Good Pay
- Good benefits
- Talented and experienced co-workers

Cons

Cons

- Stocks not moving
- Extremely political
- Slow career growth

Advice to Senior Management

More innovation instead of following the trends
Too many political leaders. Listen to the ground

Pros

Compensation is great
Health benefits are good
Work can be interesting
Microsoft prime cards gave amazing discounts on variety of restaurants

Cons

Leads are often too busy to meet with you
Can be difficult to find the support needed to do a good job

Advice to Senior Management

.

Pros

Microsoft is challenging. You will be stretched. You will never be bored.
Microsoft offers good pay and excellent benefits.
Microsoft belives in training staff, and you will be able to learn new things and develop.
Microsoft is huge, so there are always a lot of jobs. If you are the kind of person who likes to transfer internally (after you are in your position a year, that is) then you will find ample opportunity.
Microsoft offers an internal mentoring program, which all new employees should take advantage of.
Microsoft supports parents, allowing time off.
Microsoft is about getting your job done, not about face time in the office. If you want to work 10am - 7pm, fine, as long as you deliver. They also have excellent IT which enable you to work from home. There are a lot of people who work remotely or variations of part-time.
Microsoft isn't always an easy place to work, but others will help you. Just ask.
Microsoft dogfoods it's tech on employees so things in tech don't always work perfectly. However, you do have cutting edge stuff, which is really cool.

Cons

Getting into Microsoft can be hard. Make sure you are thoroughly prepared and have done a lot of research.
Sadly, the parts of Microsoft I saw have a lot of politics. Tread carefully, and ask others more experienced than you for advice.
Teams or groups tend to work on overlapping tasks, therefore you have to fight for your patch and, sometimes, it isn't about getting the job done right, it's about getting it done first, and publicizing that fact.
Because teams are graded on a curve - 10% lowest performaners, 70% in the middle and 20% high performers, you are effectively competing against your own team throughout the year. Make sure all the managers in your group - not just your own - know about your achievements.
Reorganizations and restructuring are the order of the day at Microsoft. Learn to go with the flow as the change happens and create a new niche for yourself when the dust settles.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should stop constant reorganizations. They are destablizing, costly and negatively impact customer experience (both internal and external customers). Even a radical move, like freezing all reorgs for two years, would be a good idea. People need to win the battle, not constantly rearrange troop formations.
Management need to take a hard look at their marketing and advertising strategy. Uncool advertising is so embarrassing for employees, who'd really like to be proud to work there.

Pros

Good work life balance and supportive management with flexible work hours. Good environment within the company and lots of recreation.

Cons

Too large an organization, too many highly experienced people and not great for young ambitious professionals. slow career progression

Advice to Senior Management

Management genuinely does a great job , it should aim to pay its employees more competitively or risk losing the top performers

Pros

The health benefits are great for families. There are amazing and smart people, some good managers, some good senior managers.

Cons

This is not a family friendly workplace - the surveys are incorrect in their assessments. it's not an easy place for woman with young families. The expectations can be too great.

Advice to Senior Management

If you wish to retain more women at all levels, investigate how to increase work life balance. Better educate middle managers of HR benefits.

Pros

Systems level work done is very good. Liked working on them. That is perhaps only reason why i woudl consider moving back if i ever do.

Cons

Too big. Kind of skills needed for success here are people skills rather than technical skills. Also there is no job security.

Advice to Senior Management

Put Ballmer back into sales and make someone who understands technology and is passionate about it as CEO.

Pros

Great benefits with lot of talented and technical people from all over the world. Very diversified.

Cons

Management seems to be full of managers and leads at all functional levels either technical or non-technical.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers need to be better trained to guide and advise the staff.