Microsoft is doing so much right - Principal Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

5.0
Jan 14, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Microsoft's focus on Diversity and Inclusion is stellar. Satya Nadella has instilled a "One Microsoft" Culture that's truly working. We're all expected to leverage the works of others and to contribute to the efforts of others. I love the spirit of collaboration . We are truly inventing the future and solving some of the toughest software challenges on the planet. Most of my career, I had few good things to say about Microsoft or its products and that has definitely changed in the past 7 years since Satya has taken the helm. I'm now a true believe and genuinely am pro-Microsoft in every respect. It's also easy to move from group to group as your career goals change and as you respond to re-orgs. There is a sense of "as long as you stay at Microsoft" our main goal is your career success in such changes in roles. Microsoft is also one of the best technology companies I've seen regarding nurturing your career goals. There's a real sense of nurturing our talent. No company is perfect, but Microsoft is darn close.

Cons

There simply aren't many. We re-org a lot, but I both understand the need and I also am quite tolerant of the pivots. If that's hard for you, it may be the one thing that will be undesirable.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jun 30, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Love it you are surrounded with smart people and complex problem to solve

Cons

Lots of new features and roll outs happening hard to keep pace

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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