quite good experience - Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Sep 4, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1.care much about your success and really can learn a lot about skills with brilliant people here. 2.If you are in a good team with established people, you will learn a lot and you will feel your life is enjoyable. If not, you are just wasting your time here. 3.the focus on the business. This may seem counterintuitive but the business focus is an excellent lens through which to look at software design and execution. I previously worked at a company which was arguably a better engineering company but the lack of business focus led to software projects not having longevity and ultimately to the collapse of the company.

Cons

1.maybe too many brilliant people and have no chance to be promoted 2.The company doesn't have quite the creative edge it once did. Sometimes it blunders big, yet manages to survive because of its sheer size and wealth. Management above a certain level tends to lose sight of reality, so can end up doing the wrong thing, like laying off and rewarding the wrong people.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jul 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Discretionary Time Off and Benefits Work life balance

Cons

Ambiguity and constant change isn’t for everyone. High performance work culture, but the pay doesn’t match.

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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