Microsoft reviews

Zero job security or advancement: Reviews only happen twice a year. I worked there for 2.5 years with "no budget for raises or promotions". One or two people in the entire org got promoted once a year. After my first year, there was an internal hiring freeze that kept anyone from even changing teams. Shortly after my fourth glowing performance review, I was part of the 10k people laid off in spring 2023. Though the announcement was made in January, the layoffs were rolling for months. I was a part of the very last ones, laid off in a group of 12 people by my 5th level skip, to make room for more people to work on their terrible AI. Disorganized chaos: Agile/scrum is industry standard but it still hasn't caught on at Microsoft. If you need structure, clear requirements, etc., make sure that's something the team you're going to join cares about. My org only started doing *quarterly* planning for engineering in late 2022. I'm back as a contractor now in a different org and it's actually even worse. They don't even do quarterly planning. Every organization and team have different cultures around planning, expectations, documentation, etc. If you're thinking about joining make sure to talk to your individual manager about it.

In a gist: good company, s**t jobs; narrow swim lanes may not be for everyone, career progression is slow; internal mobility is very tough (not very many opportunities and internal competition is very high); promotion salary increases are only 5% of base or a little bit more albeit your bonus and stock range might go up depending on which level you are moving up to; in spite of not having official targets for low performance, employees are stack ranked when compensation and annual rewards decisions are made; the company may have 'care' as one of its managerial standards but I have seen it being ruthless when it comes to job eliminations and making cuts in different areas of the business. It's Finance that pulls all the strings here. Overall, Microsoft may be better than other large corporate employers but it is a 'machine' and you are a tiny cog in a massive wheel. Microsoft may be flying high on the wave of AI right now but employees are not seeing the benefit in terms of their comp for the hard work they are putting in. If you come from a large traditional corporate employer, you will like it here but if you come from a progressive start up - you may be disappointed. Reorgs are frequent and, in some areas of the business, you may end up having a new manager every year or two.