Great mission, dysfunctional organization - Anonymous Employee Microsoft Employee Review
- 1.0Feb 7, 2015Anonymous ContractorFormer Contractor
Pros
TEALS (Technology Education And Literacy in Schools) is a grassroots program that recruits, trains, mentors, and places high tech professionals from across the country who are passionate about computer science education into high school classes as volunteer teachers in a team teaching model where the school district is unable to meet their students’ computer science (CS) needs on its own. You will admin a program that affects lots of students.
Cons
In all my professional years in and out of the tech space, I've never seen such dysfunctional leadership. The organization was founded by this software engineer with a great idea but that is where his talent ends. This is not a case of 'pockets of poor leadership and lack of accountability.' You will face day-to-day extreme harassment - bullying, screaming, inappropriate jokes and eventually you will leave because you are a professional. If you are thinking of joining, reach out to employees for the full scoop. They will be more than happy to tell.
Other Employee Reviews
- 5.0Nov 30, 2023Technical Support EngineerCurrent FreelancerRedmond, WA
Pros
They have software that is useful
Cons
They don't serve food to freelancers
- 4.0Jan 28, 2013Anonymous EmployeeCurrent Employee, more than 10 yearsRedmond, WA
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".
2264
