Pays well if you like having no life outside work - Software Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

3.0
Apr 23, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is one of the highest in the software industry. You work with a lot of very smart people. There is a fairly high level of autonomy in most positions. You are expected to get your work done on time and with a minimum of hand-holding.

Cons

Work/Life balance is almost non-existant. You are encouraged to come in early and stay late whenever possible. During "crunch time" it's more of a mandate than an encouragement. Political ties make more difference in promotions than actual work performance. If you are a successful SDE you will be moved up the Manager track most likely (since a lot of the successful SDEs have good leadership qualities that a lot of current managers lack).

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5.0
Jun 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing work culture and work life balance

Cons

A little slow over all

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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