Smart People, Okay products - Senior Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
15 Sept 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Working with smart knowledgeable is the best reason to work at Microsoft. Microsoft also has a big focus on engineering. You will learn a lot from both the people you work with and about engineering software.

Cons

Too much turning reports and dashboards green, and too much settling for less than best. More likely to redefine the quality bar to achieve success than to hold or change the product to meet the originally desired bug bar.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
19 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- great culture - great work life balance - great coworkers

Cons

- feels too relaxed, no one takes the work super seriously - always comparing themselves to apple

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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