Depending where you land, it may be a great place to work - Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

3.0
29 Aug 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

First: it has some great benefits. The Health Insurance is top notch, and these days that is really important. It also has a number of morale events, the campus is really good (especially with the latest additions), you most probably will have your own office, there are free pop and Starbucks coffee, and it is fairly easy to get equipment. The payment is good as well. In addition, depending on which division or team you land, you may find a great work environment, that will allow you to make your best work and work with some great people, and have reasonable working hours.

Cons

As I said in the "pros" above, it all depends on which division or team you land at the Company. Different divisions or teams can vary widely in terms of working environment. You may land in a good place, as I said before. But you may land at some bad places, where the environment is almost hostile, and all interactions are very loaded. You may spend more time dealing with the inner politics of management and your co-workers than with actual work. It may also have rather unreasonable working hours and make your life quite stressful. Finally, even though employees are supposed to move between teams fairly easily, that may not always be the case, and you may see yourself stuck in a not so desirable situation.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
22 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The work life balance is great.

Cons

Very little pay not competitive.

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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