Pros
- Microsoft is a iconic name that still attracts young professionals. - Looks good on resume, other companies know if you can manage the work/life balance at this company then you are no slacker. - Pay is good for entry level but for industry hires look elsewhere - Smart people that are experts in what they do
Cons
I can write many things here: - Highly political company that rewards people that can play the game * Send bunch of email --> This shows you are working according to managers * Suck up to your manager --> This is how people are getting promoted * Do less of what is assigned to you and more of useless tools to have "impact" cross teams - Stack ranking system with forced curve * Even if you have a team full of rock star engineers 1 or 2 will be getting a rating of 4, 5. * This system forces competition among peers rather than collaboration * Even if you work very hard to improve the feature/quality you are not rewarded because it's "expected". While someone else can work 9-5 and do a silly script to automate stuff is valued - Far too many Program managers * These people don't contribute less than quarter of what engineers(SDE/SDET) do * Great talented people that are forced into this role to do data entry Overall: Microsoft looks very good from outside, however it's a contrast when you are inside.