Learn good software engineering practices, and then rethink about your career. - Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) Microsoft Employee Review

1.0
Nov 19, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You will be working with some of the smartest people if you are in the right group here. You will have an opportunity to learn so much about software engineering. Good facilities and perks.

Cons

Too big a company and too many re-orgs. It hampers an individual contributor's growth. You will be learning Microsoft technologies a lot. These doesn't help if you look for opportunities outside Microsoft. You will basically be a person who knows only about Microsoft technologies and nothing about open source technology stack. A Microsoft engineer might not be that highly regarded in other big companies simply because of the technologies learnt while in Microsoft. Another issue is that you will be as good as your lead projects you in front of everyone else. So if your lead doesn't like you, you are screwed. This lead might not be the one who interviewed you and hired you because of re-org. So basically it is something like you interviewed for team A, but when you join, because of re-orgs you end up working for team B and totally different person who you did not meet during the interview time. Another thing is SDET career is not good at all. Anyone who joins as SDET is just wasting career here.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

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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