Pros
+ Diverse range of products, technologies and skills. Very good place to have a broad range of skills. + Reasonable work/life balance. Though, it might vary team to team. + You will get to work with very smart people. + Good benefits - Pay; Paternity/Maternity leaves; 401k match; ESPP; Stock; good # of days of vacation; dental benefits are reasonable; health benefits are ok I guess, but the way they are rolling out the changes is horrible. + Good social and environmental consciousness.
Cons
1. HR policies always seem to favor managers over employees. See details below. 2. Mobility is limited as managers have to be notified before interviewing with other teams. 3. Even after the latest round of review changes, employees don't get transparent information about their performance and promotions. Managers get to distribute bonuses, and increases based on unknown processes. Promotions were always a mystery. 4. Managers have a tight grip over projects/assignments an employee gets. Employees don't have much freedom to openly work on projects that they like. 5. No team spirit or culture. I have seen ideas get stolen/copied and the originators never credited multiple times. 6. New health benefits changes are a disaster. Not only are we out 1000s of dollars every year, the paper work takes up few hours every month. 7. Senior management has no clue what they are up to. Ballmer was joke when it came to decision making / strategy. Yes. We have a new CEO. Let's see how he shakes things up. 8. Crony culture in senior management is painfully obvious. See what happened to Sinofsky and his lieutenants. 10. Career progress depends how well you are liked by your manager and skip level manager. 11. Very weak product management culture. Unused/incomplete features, multiple UIs, hard to use features, ....