Great place to learn how NOT to do things... - Anonymous employee Microsoft Employee Review

1.0
13 May 2011
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

* Paychecks are never late/checks never bounce * Good health insurance, but not after 2012...

Cons

* Outdated process learned from Windows & Office; struggles to work on the Web (Waterfall) * Slow and rigid release cycles * Outdated internal tools & processes, doesn't keep up with the world outside of MSFT and has fallen behind * Very political, lots of internal competition * Bonuses & Promotions incentivize only shipping on time, not quality and not our customers * Managers act more like accountants than engineers; they only know how to cut costs but lack in innovation and vision * Most of all, people aren't passionate about what they're doing or the product they're working on. Just a paycheck for most.

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5.0
23 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

good team and good life balance

Cons

bad food and tratment .

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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