Overall, a great place to work. - Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Aug 22, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The best thing about working at Microsoft is being surrounded by bright people. I love the experience of not being the smartest person in the room and being able to learn from my peers. The compensation is reasonable, the benefits are excellent, and there are great opportunities for professional development. An advantage of working for a big company (and something that is entrenched in the Microsoft culture) is the ability to easily switch teams. It's nice to know that if I ever get tired of my current problem space, I have the option of branching out and trying something completely different.

Cons

While I believe Microsoft has been going to great pains to improve their compensation and bonus model, it's still far from perfect. Individual managers wield a huge amount of power when it comes to deciding an employee's review numbers (you are literally relying on your manager to fight for you). If you've been unfortunate enough to get on your manager's bad side, watch out. Adding to this problem is the fact that there's little oversight in the review model. It's frustrating knowing that you risk getting screwed if you're not willing to suck up.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jun 19, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- great culture - great work life balance - great coworkers

Cons

- feels too relaxed, no one takes the work super seriously - always comparing themselves to apple

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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