Working at Microsoft - Principal Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
11 Sept 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Microsoft is a great company. Free drinks and cheap food at a great cafeteria. Unlimited resources, pretty much any kind of project you want to work on and a lot of mobility within the company. Opportunities all over the world. The new management really gets what needs to happen and it feels like the company is going in the right direction. There are some great people at Microsoft.

Cons

Organization tends to be unstable. You never know when you will end up on a new team with a new manager. Managers have unlimited power and virtually no accountability. They can make you a star or run you out of the company with virtually no challenge to their reasoning or facts. Great if your manager likes you. Terrible if not. Sadly not all managers are good.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

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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