Microsoft California Reviews

Pros

Great work-life balance, great pay, good people. A lot of growth in the business.

Cons

Less exposure to high growth situations of startups.

Pros

great benefits, very flexible, tuition reimbursement, you're the first one to know about the latest technology of Microsoft!

Cons

Nothing for the company!! The customers are difficult sometimes, but everyone works together

Advice to Management

Communicate better when we get new employees

Pros

Small yet highly talented HW engineering community: I was surrounded by exceptionally bright and capable coworkers, I learned a lot from multiple mentors. Exciting Hardware projects: Surface, Xbox, Hololens are all big in SVC, tons of exciting, technically challenging work to cut your teeth on. Good work-life balance and perks (at Silicon Valley campus) including fitness classes led by instructors, catered bfast/lunch,...

Cons

Many, many layers of management - expect 6-9 layers of management between you and CEO - making it difficult for cultural changes to trickle down through the org. Because of the many layers, a lot of your day-to-day depends on your direct manager. Mitigated by ease of moving internally. Program manager heavy - many PM's overseeing schedule, but over the 4 years that I was there, I saw the same scheduling mistakes...

Advice to Management

If you are serious about cultural changes, make sure they do trickle down.

Pros

- Great vision - Good leadership team under Satya - Culture change for the good - Good pay and benefits - Relocation options

Cons

- execution on culture change is not adopted by everybody - ESPP plan not very generous

Advice to Management

Keep doing what you’re doing, and make sure to enforce the cultural change at all levels.

Pros

I've been working at MS for little more than 5 years. MS has a good salary and benefit. I would say it's pretty good work & life balance I could manage.

Cons

It's a big corporation work culture which has a hierarchy making a decision slow down. You don't hear a happy loud laugh here but quite working in front of your monitor which can be a little sad if you are looking for a friendly and fun work culture.

Pros

Smart, high-caliber co-workers. Challenging environment. Good compensation.

Cons

Stressful, high-energy, tight schedules, and lots to do. Review process keeps you on the treadmill.

Advice to Management

Politics cannot be avoided :(

Pros

Benefits are possibly the best in the industry, depending on what state you reside in you may pay nothing (per paycheck, not co-pays) for medical benefits, dental and vision are spectacular as well (they even cover adult orthodontia). 401k match is great, stock grants (not options) are like a carrot on a string but when they vest it is great, expect these grants in lieu of substantial salary raises or bonuses...ymmv...

Cons

for a PFE, travel is a big Con, it can be quite a bit depending on if you are Dedicated or Transactional. 80% utilization metric can be tough to hit all close to your home. Services division has been in a bit of flux/re-org since I joined three years ago, tools are dated, difficult to use and make doing your job difficult. Delivery options can be limited depending on your domain/skillset.

Advice to Management

keep up the cloud battles, great for stock and investors, priorities at the Entire org level dont translate easily and clearly to lower divisions or individual FTEs (sure we need to sell AI but some customers dont have the skillsets or data)

Pros

Give you time to learn and grow. Provide lots of training on career development. Promote collaboration and encourage knowledge sharing . Great colleagues and working environment.

Cons

Too many re-orgs and projects got cut at very late stage. Wasting time and Money! Not put effort to build up teams and good products in Silicon Valley Campus

Advice to Management

Please put important projects in SVC so that it can attract more top talents from Silicon Valley!