Pros
The benefits were incredible. Microsoft covered premiums for medical/dental/vision. They gave thousands in an HSA card. They matched 50% of 401k contributions up to the IRS limits. All told, probably 30k worth of benefits. The work was interesting, at least at first. Not too much micromanaging. Excellent severance package.
Cons
No job stability. Seemingly at random, groups would get laid off. Might be 10 people this week from a neighboring department. Might be 2000 people next week. My group lasted pretty long, all things considered. Doesn't matter how well your team does, how many projects you complete, your team may be laid off with no warning. I'm marking DEI as 1 star not due to any personal bad experiences, but rather because they laid off the entire DEI team, so I anticipate things getting worse. More and more of the work is focused on the AI projects, even when the results of those projects are less than impressive.
