Microsoft Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time

Pros – Lots of varied job opportunity

Cons – Culture does not suit everyone

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – great worklife balance, open to change and new ideas

Cons – by becoming a huge corporate change is slowing down

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great people and a very good company with its employee. A learnt a lot.

Cons – Large and slow moving company. Innovates but without a clear direction. Too many people/project so the scope of the work is very limited. Lacks a technical CEO.

Advice to Senior Management – Having a technical aware CEO and invert more in crazy ideas.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft

Pros – Almost unlimited possibilities for personal and career development
You get to work with highly ambitious people in a very competitive environment
Flexible working environment and great collaboration tools for it (work from anywhere at any time)

Cons – You are measured on everything and anything
Focus is entirely on the current fiscal year
In practice, the culture does not encourage co-operation, quite on the contrary

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of the middle-management layer

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Smart, passionate people, good career growth potential with international mobility.
Open and honest feedback depending on your manager
Huge company with many possibilities, though it is increasingly difficult to change roles within the company.

Cons – Constant change in recent years (multiple managers, org names, and bad communication to field teams within my division).
The changes, and direction of the company are moving in a good direction overall but change management needs a review.

Advice to Senior Management – Need to change review system to move beyond individuals and reward (at least partially) teams. The necessity to create 5's and then boot them out does not encourage team work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft for more than 10 years

Pros – After 10 years still enjoying Microsoft Services org

Cons – Too much politics in corporate environment

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Microsoft full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Renumeration is good for a large corporate. Shares given regularly though upside on shares is low.
Access to great technology, and good staff software perks including employee purchase and free MSDN Ultimate.

Cons – Quite political and sometimes doesn't feel like everyone is pulling in the same direction. Review system isn't great, can sometimes act unfairly to both high and low achievers which can impact bonuses and often success is very dependent on the product rather than the individual.

Advice to Senior Management – Microsoft has excellent integration between its software products - try and sell solutions that add client value rather than just trying to bundle products up in an EA or driving hard to get an unneeded product in the EA.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great work environment
Flexible hours
Lots of opportunities to grow
You got bore of the technology you are working on, no problem switch to another completely different product in the company
Good benefits package

Cons – A bit process heavy, especially on very old products

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time

Pros – Good if you want decent working hours. They are flexible with working arrangement (work from home) and treat their employees with respect. Performance review, for all its flaws, is a amture process and usually fair.

Cons – Not the most exciting work. Bureaucracy can be a little annoying at times. If you want your career to be exciting and take off, look elsewhere.

Advice to Senior Management – Take more risks.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Some smart people work at Microsoft
Physical working conditions are great

Cons – Teamwork destroying Stack Ranking
Rewards for playing politics rather than doing a good job
Mindless bureacracy and pointless processes
Poor strategic direction
Centralised control via inflexible scorecards. You expend effort on colouring in scorecards even when it is clearly the wrong use of resources

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of Ballmer and Turner
Get rid of Stack Ranking

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company