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Microsoft Washington DC Reviews
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Pros
"You have a really good work-life balance" (in 2281 reviews)
"Smart people (more at HQ than the field)" (in 1802 reviews)
Cons
"Work-life balance can be a challenge" (in 1197 reviews)
"Outdated review system which is anything but fair" (in 530 reviews)
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"Great company!"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at Microsoft full-time (More than a year)
Pros
Great for your resume! Excellent training!
Cons
Steep learning curve, very little guidance or supervision
Microsoft 2019-02-04 09:51 PST![Microsoft Logo]()
"Excellent place to work alongside brilliant minds."
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookNo opinion of CEOI worked at Microsoft full-time (More than a year)
Pros
Best environment to work in
Cons
Work / life balance can become hard after a while. Expectations are always high which creates pressure.
Microsoft 2019-02-13 11:03 PST![Microsoft Logo]()
"Resurrection"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (More than 10 years)
Pros
Smart people (more at HQ than the field). Ethics are taken seriously. People are generally collegial and collaborative (with some exceptions). The stock has been great if you've been around for a few years and could enjoy the runup in 2017-2018.
Cons
Salaries are just OK, not great. Comp plans for pre-sales technical staff not competitive with the market, which leads to gamesmanship like giving people who should be on Account Technology Specialist roles in Account Team Units (ATU) in Solutions Specialist (SSP) roles so they can make more money--that is a problem in my org and leads to dissension among technical specialists in the STU, who don't have the opportunity to be on Solution Specialist comp plans while not being accountable for opportunity ownership. Local leadership doesn't understand the problem that causes for morale and the sense that ATUs are "more equal than others", to quote Animal Farm.
Quotas are assigned to accounts instead individuals, so every seller shares a quota with someone else, sometimes many others. That can lead to internal friction and some free-riding.Advice to Management
Clearly, Satya has done a masterful job of getting MS back on track by pursuing a very Buddhist-inspired cultural transformation (not fighting "what is so" and being authentic and humble). Satya isn't explicit about the Buddhist origins of his leadership, but those who know his background and family history can infer the influences. Satya has done a good job of selecting solid leaders at senior levels, but there is more work to do with mid-level managers (national subsidiary leadership and a few levels down; especially the legacy people who thrived under Kevin Turner). Cultural change is happening and my advice to Satya is to focus on culture forever. He's off to a great start, but it could all revert with some bad hires and taking his eye off the ball on culture in the sales org.
Microsoft 2019-01-27 15:30 PST![Microsoft Logo]()
"Software engineering"
StarStarStarStarStar- Career Opportunities
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (More than 10 years)
Pros
It is just the passion
Cons
There are none and I am enjoying
Microsoft 2019-01-26 07:04 PST![Microsoft Logo]()
"It's OK (Datacenter)"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsNeutral OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (More than a year)
Pros
These are the Pros for Microsoft Datacenter:
- Easy Job
- Pays more than IBM
- Stress free in terms of physical labor
- Microsoft offers amazing benefits. My current benefit payout is 19.1k.
- Microsoft pays you back for fitness related items
- Workplace environment is relaxed
- Great starter job in the IT industry, I would recommend this job to people just starting out.Cons
These are the Cons for Microsoft Datacenter:
- Does not pay nearly as much as Amazon or Oracle
- Job might be easy, but it's very linear. You will definitely need something to distract you from the boredom.
- Gossip and backstabbing is like wildfire in this particular location of Microsoft.
- Does not offer any holidays off at all, unless requested. And only 3 people per shift can get them off. Everyone else is stuck here on holidays. (upside you get double pay if working on holidays).
- People get hired here with subpar knowledge on how to do the work, which has caused a high turnover rate of talent.
- Very little to almost no career opportunities in terms of promotions. Most people have to move out, in order to move up. This also sorta ties into the talent having a higher turnover rate.
- Yearly pay raise is extremely low.Advice to Management
This is the Advice to Management for Microsoft Datacenter:
- More interpersonal skills with the employees. We would rather want to see you as someone who's actually out there working with the employees, or at least trying to relate to us, rather than sitting in an office all day behind closed doors doing email work. We run a data center, not an office building. We ALL should know how to do the work, not just the few of us.
- Please hire more talent, and less fillers. Perhaps consider replacing some deadwood to alleviate the discrepancy.Microsoft 2019-01-18 18:14 PSTHelpful (5)
![Microsoft Logo]()
"I couldn’t imagine a better company to be a part of"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (Less than a year)
Pros
Amazing salary and benefits, honestly top notch. There may be some competitors who pay more in comparison but most employees with competitors are miserable and dying for a good culture. Culture at Microsoft is amazing and extremely important. Everyone is very collaborative and they want to help you succeed for the most part. The opportunity once you enter Microsoft is honestly endless. You can make about as much money as you can possibly imagine, and do any job you’ve ever really wanted to do. You can also move almost anywhere you want to move. Most roles have a ton of opportunity to work remote, which is my favorite part. I accomplish so much from home, and without the travel time on a daily basis I finish more than I normally would. Work life balance is great and an emphasis- they encourage you to enjoy your time with your family. Ultimately that’s up to you if you can separate the two.
Cons
Lack of training. Even when provided with training events, seems the facilitators or the training material is way over your head at that point in Microsoft. Once you gain a better understanding of your role, that naturally comes with time, you’ll really wish someone would’ve explained everything to you like you were 5 years old from the get go. It seems they try to go level 500 immediately rather than giving overviews, and this goes for a lot of different initiatives throughout the company. Rather than trying to sound extremely smart with 30 slides with 500 words or more per slide, get to the point and speak in simple terms that we will understand and can portray to our customers.
Advice to Management
Be more transparent, the transparency is there if you ask for it. But if you are just starting, there are a lot of questions you don’t know to ask. As soon as you ask, a lot will be revealed to you. If you never ask, good luck guessing at what you need to do in order to be a rockstar at your role.
Microsoft 2018-10-09 22:57 PDTHelpful (4)
![Microsoft Logo]()
"UX Consultant"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (More than 8 years)
Pros
Travel a lot, working with many different industries across various industries
Cons
Terrible internal politics, more resistance internally with Microsoft-own internal teams than externally with customers
Advice to Management
Solve the internal blaming game culture in Services and focus on result and outcome, instead of repeating Victim, Rescuer, Persecutor Karpman drama triangle and ignored customer outcome
Microsoft 2018-09-13 14:59 PDTHelpful (5)
![Microsoft Logo]()
"No longer a good place to work"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (More than 10 years)
Pros
Obviously, its the center of the world for Microsoft technology.
Cons
Management quality varies widely from team to team. Ranges from good leaders to criminally abusive managers.
Advice to Management
Try treating people like people instead of like nameless numbers in a spreadsheet.
Microsoft 2018-09-03 15:39 PDT![Microsoft Logo]()
"Awesome place to work"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (More than 10 years)
Pros
Good people, good leadership, and great focus on customer, technology, and community. I enjoy being part of the leading edge and solving complex issues.
Cons
So many technologies makes it difficult to go deep into the well of knowledge.
Microsoft 2018-07-24 13:25 PDTHelpful (2)
![Microsoft Logo]()
"No longer customer obsessed."
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Microsoft full-time (More than 5 years)
Pros
Great pay! Amazing benefits! Microsoft on your resume.
Cons
No work life balance. Systems are still an inconvenience and many of the support channels do not understand what you have to do so there is always a back and forth.
Advice to Management
5 years ago the policy was take care of your customer. Quit trying to be apple and only care about selling. Your customer obsession is what sets you apart.
Microsoft 2018-08-08 15:56 PDT
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