It is still a good place to be - Software Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Jun 11, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

One billion of users, thousands of features, and hundreds of products. If you are smart and have elbows, you can fulfill most ambitious aspirations. Maybe you will not make difference to the universe, but you will be able to contribute to many decisions that shape industry - as part of your day-to-day work. Great benefits - anything from great medical insurance to free bus pass to posh fitness center etc. Most of all -- you are surrounded with a lot of really smart people. So if you are just out of college, Microsoft is the place to grow professionally - very quickly. If you are from industry and have something to bring to the table - you will be appreciated and respected (as long as you can control your ego).

Cons

Microsoft is a very big company. And it has been around for some time. So in some ways it becomes... a bit dilbertesque. For a dozen of really good working bees, there would be one smart guy who only knows how to manage his own career. Most probably it is a "middle manager", because new hires get filtered out quite effectively. So how those career-focused people survive? - They create "processes" and "initiatives", and then you are the one to fight back. So it really matters if your boss stays technical -- as long as he remembers how to write code (and he must know it in the fist place!), you won't feel dilbert.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very good flexibility with remote work Very good pay level at initial joining years Excellent team dynamics and coachable engineers

Cons

Very less hike post 4-5 years into the role Very good teams but as a senior has responsibility over shadow all junior work

4.0
Jan 28, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

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".

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