Microsoft Software Development Enginner-|| reviews

Although there are a lot of smart people at Microsoft, there are also a lot of incompetent people and a whole bunch of coasters (i.e. people who do barely enough to not get fired). The company is schizophrenic and the people at the top need to figure out what company Microsoft is these days, and let the rest of us know. I think there are many different spaces that we have no right being in, especially considering that some of the mature parts of the company could use some house cleaning. There are definitely old boys clubs -- so to speak -- in parts of the company, and having the right friends can get you promoted faster. The performance review system needs an overhaul: the current system biases people too heavily towards working for a promotion rather than working to build great software. Perhaps my biggest complaint is baring the weight of the company's external image. The worst are the irrational perceptions held by your peers in the industry; these are people who are suppose to be scientists and engineers, but religious assertions prevail once you get them talking about Microsoft. The company's poor image stems from both internal and external factors, and the people internally who act in the Microsoft image need to be taught differently or pushed out.

With the expansion, more and more bureaucratic and politics, less and less innovation. Now there are plenty of people working on internal development and release process, rules and guidelines, way too many of them are invented. There are redundencies, waste of resources, both by developing them and time spent to learn and adjust to thm. Every couple of years, it is definitely there is new internal tools and processes replacing old ones with no good reason. Now it is evident that to advance your career you need to go with managerial track, where senior technical people now spend time do adminitrative work. Also people good at political game get promoted fast. People can argue this is inevitable to a big company, but no one can argue this is a good thing to a techincal company.