I didn't make anything for the first year and a half. Just fixed bugs. Not fun. - Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

3.0
5 Nov 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great work-life balance. Great bosses. Great colleagues that you can rely on. Private or shared offices (team size/facilities permitting; expect a three-plus year wait or management for privacy in my experience). Good facilities. Pretty good equipment. Lots of cafeterias with varying kinds of food. Company name recognition and respect. Free sodas and juices.

Cons

A not-invented-here mentality. The company is split into fiefdoms that look out for themselves first. The CEO, Steve Ballmer, is a clown with no vision, inspiration, or appeal. No cool perks like at Google: no free food, no massages, no campus bicycles, no 20% time, etc. There's a stink of stagnation and irrelevance. You have to use Windows and Microsoft tools (no UNIX terminal or programs). Huge wastes of time: dependencies are often constructed in parallel, and the stuff you need just isn't there yet (contrast this to an iterative approach). Most tools are home grown and not supported very well. No Git or other decentralized version control; it's like CVS or SVN, but a worse Microsoft version. Terrible Sharepoint wiki software used for internal wikis. Often times, some internal tool doesn't work, and you have no idea who to talk to.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
30 June 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Love it you are surrounded with smart people and complex problem to solve

Cons

Lots of new features and roll outs happening hard to keep pace

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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