They tout diversity but not diversity of thought - Anonymous employee Microsoft Employee Review

2.0
24 July 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Microsoft pays well and has the best benefits that I've ever seen for any company, especially for health insurance.

Cons

Microsoft feels very collegial and not in a good way. People who have been there for a long time call themselves "Softees". The top corporate leadership went to similar ivy league schools and have been there for more than 15 years, so they protect each other. It's very tough being a new manager to offer a different opinion, it's frowned on. They say they want people of diverse backgrounds to participate in introducing new ideas, but it's mostly lip service, since direct bosses will discourage it. Some bosses are frankly afraid, since they don't know anything else besides the "Softee" way. Microsoft works in a matrix leadership instead of a pyramid, which is unproductive and very political, since you most likely will not just have one boss, but a "skip" boss too that will compete to manage you. Middle management gets stuck in the middle, so it takes much longer to execute projects than it should be.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
7 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Interesting and varied work. Seasonality to the job allows for rest period

Cons

Less stability than there used to be makes people afraid to take risks

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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