Microsoft Senior Software Development Engineer reviews

Very subjective review system. Lots of process - some necessary, but some is burdensome. Very competive environment - you need to bring your A-game, or you'll get passed by. You have to "manage your career" to get ahead - choose the right teams, right projects, ensure your personal visibility is high & your personal "brand" is positive.

-Annual review system forces bottom 20% each year to be eventually managed out of the company, making for an extremely stressful workplace -Microsoft appears to be in the process of laying off or otherwise turning over 20% of the workforce over the next 3 - 5 years -Technical skills acquired are Microsoft centric and not transferable to other companies -Performance ratings are too dependent on the immediate manager (leaving you at the mercy of manipulative managers) -The work environment is extremely political, requiring a lot of maneuvering to get ahead, and there is no teamwork -All product strategy is ultimately based on defending the Windows business, so there is no innovation (just being a fast follower) -All products are perenially focused on catching up with competitors to prevent marketshare erosion (e.g. Windows 8 to combat iPad, Office "Online" to combat Google Apps, Windows Server to combat VMWare, etc.) -Management is focused more on building empires for themselves, and not on doing the right things for Microsoft -Medical benefits will be severely cut back starting in 2013 (moving to Health Savings Account, etc.) -Base salary is not competitive with rest of tech industry -Stock has gone nowhere in 10+ years :-)