Microsoft Reviews

I worked at Microsoft

Pros – So much money - great benefits, good salaries and plenty of ability to do nothing at all.

Cons – Can be boring as hell.

I worked at Microsoft full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great brand awareness and large organisation benefits. A few intelligent people who make coming to work a good experience. Nice looking offices and travel to the USA once a year for training. If you're female and want a shortcut and career advancement apply immediately!

Cons – Very factional environment and if you're not 'in' with the right people you'll not get any opportunities for advancement, currently very strict on female hires and advancement for ladies. Very cut throat environment with really bad behaviour at all levels that seem to be rewarded.

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of top 3 layers of local management, bring in real Microsoft people to fix the current culture.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Cash - company is sitting on a mountain of cash and can afford to blow big budgets for Marketing campaigns every quarter which makes your job easy.
Products with significant market share - Windows and Office - as a Marketer, you can expect sales to roll in regardless of how well you do (or in the case of many - don't) your job well

Cons – Very political environment - many dinosaurs in this company make it hard to do any real work as everyone is playing games to try to move up the ranks. This is particularly tough for new graduates as they are competing for air time with 15 year old dinosaurs who have strong connections with the SLT
Unimaginative - Marketing spend is largely focused on dragging competitors' names through the mud and copying features and products

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Microsoft

Pros – Good company to work for

Cons – Very siloed management style which limits empowerment

I have been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Strong, values based culture (in Australian subsidiary) focused on personal development and rewarding high achievers. Very high average IQ and capability of staff. Good alignment of personal goals to company goals. Great benefits package.

Cons – High pressure, more and more revenue driven. Quarterly reporting, forecasting, pipeline management is everything, at expense of customer relationship and long term outcomes. Some teams dysfunctional due to poor leadership, not being sorted out.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a longer term approach, continue to invest in the best and not focus as much on keeping the market happy from one quarter to the next.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Microsoft full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Started off well, used to be very customer focussed, slowly declined with less and less focus on their customers
great products and innovating to Cloud strategy that really is very good
Used to be a good Brand Name

Cons – All about internal self promotion, not about the results you produced
Management were all about themselves, covering their own backsides, disappearing when a deal went bad
Bullying seemed to be the only way the inexperienced management could deal with the pressure from above
30-40% increase in Quota year on year - not sustainable...mmmmm
Success measurements became all about complicated scorecarding, just make sure it is 'Green', "I do not care how you make it turn Green ?"
What a pity because this was a great company to be associated with..... truly.

Advice to Senior Management – Start being honest with yourselves, taking more time to manage vs. Management by Scorecards
Your staff and customers should be top priority, not your Scorecard turning green
Too many long termers that can do no wrong

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Microsoft full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Microsoft is a great company to work for. Compensation & benefits are competitive, work / life balance is great, and career progression opportunities are there if you seek them out.

They work hard at culture, which seems to pay dividends on the whole, though there can be a group vs group mentality at times.

Cons – It is a slow moving beast, and bureaucracy can get in the way of getting things done.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – People, benefits, leading edge technologies, work environment

Cons – Growing bureaucracy, growing focus on short term revenue

Advice to Senior Management – Inspire people with long term vision

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Microsoft full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great facilities
Benefits are of a good standard
Definitely a great place to get exposure to the industry
Some amazing people work here

Cons – Management talent is severely lacking
Unashamedly progression is about 'who you know'
Office politics is out of control
Most actions from a meeting = have another meeting

Advice to Senior Management – Flatten the company
Try and recruit more from within
Ideally employ managers with an appreciation of the roles they support

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Microsoft full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – You get to work with some very smart people. Always new challenges to take on and being a global company there are a variety of opportunities to take on if you wish

Cons – The review system was never well done, in spite of promises to the contrary good people get pushed down to fit a curve.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to get back to the innovative core that you once were. I can't help thinking that the company got scared by the whole FTC debacle. Yes, some of what came out was right, and changes had to be made. But now the company seems scared to take a risk because it might get them in trouble.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend