Morale circling the drain - PM Lead Microsoft Employee Review

2.0
Aug 11, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There are still many good things about Microsoft. The compensation is fairly high (though not the highest), and the benefits are good overall. Many of my colleagues are smart, positive, helpful people.

Cons

The phrase "do more with less" is once again becoming toxic at Microsoft. First, it was do more with less, because Microsoft has been laying off people right and left — many of them totally unnecessarily. The work still needs to be done, but they just cut the teams doing it. My team was cut by 60% even though there is more work than before. Then, it was do more with less compensation, when Microsoft decided not to give raises to full-time employees (during high inflation, let's call this what it is: a pay cut). The, it was do more with less as Microsoft is reducing its budget for morale, equipment, travel, vendors, everything really. WLB has gotten worse. Compensation has gotten worse. Culture has gotten worse. Morale is the lowest I've seen in over a decade. And leadership appears not to care; worse, even to be daring people to complain, daring them to leave. It's not good lately.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jun 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

great to work with collaborative team

Cons

large company so there's a lot of overlap between team strengths

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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