Microsoft - Exceeded/20% - Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

5.0
Sep 15, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The choices. Pick a field. Microsoft is probably involved in it, and you can be a part of our work to become the leader or, if we are already the best in the field, to improve the state of the art. Money is not an obstacle. The lower ranks can bring significant change to products. The development process. There are some downsides to the systems and bureaucracy at MS, but after being in the business for 30 years, they are trying their best to improve and bring consistency to the way software is written. Having worked for companies that do not care about a product other than getting it out the door, this is a huge win.

Cons

The location. To live in a city with nightlife (or _any_ entertainment), you must suffer an hour-long commute each way in heavy traffic. The speed of the company as a whole. Don't get me wrong - individual product units can be very agile and work cross-team (hundreds of employees), but to really mobilize across entire organizations takes multiple releases. This can sometimes mean that the customer has to wait, which is frustrating for anyone who has come from a small-company background. The lack of attrition. I don't know anyone who has been fired from Microsoft. I have not met many people who deserve it, but when you do find them, you really question the management of the company.

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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