Too many people drinking their own Kool-Aid - Senior Program Manager Microsoft Employee Review

2.0
Jan 26, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They have nice health benefits, especially if you have a spouse and kids. However, this will change in 2013 when they adopt a health program more similar to other companies. The days of the Cadillac Health Plan, while great, are sadly coming to a close. Outside of that, if you can thrive in the high stress and ultra-competetive work culture they foster and consistently hit the top of the annual performance review curve, the top 5-10% see some pretty great rewards.

Cons

However, if you are not in the top 5-10% of the annual performance review curve, the rewards are substantially different and less impressive. Depending on the organization, there can also be high levels of political gamesmanship and favor currying. Many teams drive too much to advertise and evangelize the work they are doing instead of actually doing the work, and unfortunately it works for now (but it won't always). The annual review system still fosters a predatory competetive culture versus a cooperative competetive culture. Senior management's philosophies on employees and employee retention have changed over the years as well. There used to be a strong belief in recovery, however that is not the case in the Windows organization today. As long as an employee produces and never needs any more-than-perfunctory maintenence, you will be fine. However, if more course correction than that is needed (and over a multi-year career, even super smart people occasionally need an assist here or there), the philosophy today seems to be to cut bait and just bring in another body. Microsoft always has said they invest in their people, however their actions more accurately reflected their words years ago than they do today.

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5.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

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Cons

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4.0
Jan 28, 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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