Microsoft Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) reviews

The culture of visibility, staying until the boss leaves, and working longer hours whenever there's more work to be done still exists. If you're not visible you'll get ranked in the bottom 10% in your group, and get a poor performance review which impacts your chances of getting another job within the company. The current salary structure punishes people for not changing jobs within the company every 2 years. This is compounded by the previous point.

Flexible hours also means work/life balance is a joke--you have the flexibility to decide which 80 hours you want to work each week. Stack-ranking system is a teamwork and morale killer. This is the most pathetic and antagonistic policy I've seen implemented over the years. Lack of flexibility and drive at the upper management levels. We had smartphones, touch screens, tablets, and such well before Apple--nobody took them and kept improving on them to deliver something that would wow the world! They just shelved it or kept insisting that it would have to run Windows.