Excellent Work/Life Balance; Frequent Reorgs - Principal Program Manager Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
26 Oct 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Microsoft is generally very good to employees, by fostering an inclusive culture, by providing challenging and engaging work, and by providing access to modern tools and technology to work with. Microsoft has a liberal leave and sick time-off policy, as well as above average (though not great) health-benefits. Finally Microsoft has not swung to far, to fast, back with RTO, but instead taken a measured and thoughtful stance.

Cons

Microsoft reorganizes its workforce frequency, at least twice a year, from my perspective. This can lead to periods of uncertainty and unease leading up to (as rumors swirl) and immediately following these events. Sometimes these reorgs are logical, other times capricious; and with a lack of clear communication it can sometimes be difficult to tell which is which.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

4.0
28 Jan 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1. If you love tech, this is a great place. No doubt you'll talk tech (mostly the MSFT stack) from enterprise to consumer - from PCs to phones to Xboxes - from datacenter to desktop. 2. What were GREAT benefits are now VERY GOOD (took a small step down) but still probably better than you'll find at 99% of large corporations. If you've got family - the value of the benefits is even higher. 401k match is nice. 3. Even with it's struggles MSFT is still a cash printing machine. This means if you can keep your nose clean and do reasonable work, you can have a stable job, pay your bills, feed your family, and not worry (too much) about layoffs. The stock you own likely won't tank, but probably won't go up much either. You'll get a bonus each year and some stock. It's a decent life if you aren't looking to light the world on fire.

Cons

Brand on Your Resume: After many years of losing market share and struggling to be at the front end of innovation and the fact that there's 90,000 employees, don't think MSFT is necessarily going to be attractive on your resume to more agile and smaller companies. Managing Your Career: Make you say this out loud so it registers - 90,000 employees work there. Double that for vendors. It is VERY hard to "stand out" and move up in the company. Don't expect your manager to be much of an advocate or enabler to help you meet your career goals - they are basically trying to survive the stack rank every year too. Not familiar with the stack rank? Check out the 2012 Vanity Fair article called "Microsoft's Lost Decade".

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