Great company being taken down by a new CEO. - Software Engineer II Microsoft Employee Review

2.0
19 Oct 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good benefits - health insurance is good (but was better as a PPO before being a high deductible HSA), free sodas, choice of wellness benefits (fancy gym membership or money for sports extracurriculars), on sight locker rooms with towel service, charity giving match, opportunities for free products, reduced cost software. If you get on a good team they become like a second family (which is good because work life balance can be bad - see cons). Fair and reasonable time off -- 3 weeks vacation to start, with an extra week at 6 years, and another at 12; 10 sick days, 2 floating holidays, plus 8 company holidays. Many managers are willing to be flexible if you need a half day, or run out of sick time to let you make it up in other ways. Commute options are good - free parking, complimentary bus pass, plus company run shuttle service (The Connector)

Cons

New CEO is taking things downhill fast by getting rid of test teams. Quality of internal releases has been getting worse for the last 6+ months with no sign of getting better. They tout positive work life balance, but if your product is at all behind, which happens often, you'll be working more hours than you can imagine. You don't earn comp time, so you have to just suck it up if they say you need to work a weekend. If you get an unjustified poor review you have little to no recourse. If you happen to get on a bad team, or a team with ineffective managers who won't stand up for you, you are screwed. Good luck trying to transfer, because other teams will be wary due to the review. Re-orgs happen ALL the time. This can make it incredibly difficult to have any sense of stability in your role, because you will regularly have a new manager.

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5.0
7 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Interesting and varied work. Seasonality to the job allows for rest period

Cons

Less stability than there used to be makes people afraid to take risks

4.0
28 Jan 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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