Toxic Place and Toxic CVP - Team Leader Microsoft Employee Review

1.0
17 Oct 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Had an awesome team, deeply dedicated to their domain of expertise. Loved the work I did with them. The pay and benefits were really good comparatively to other companies. Did I say how awesome the ICs and my team was.... great, kind, humble (most of them anyway)

Cons

My new boss was toxic: I was screamed at, humiliated, and gaslit for; 6 months. I dropped 30 pounds from the stress and was throwing up every morning when my boss called threatening my career and livelihood. I was a high performer under my prior boss, the only difference now - the CVP above me that I reported to. They were a terror. CVP purposefully set out to destroy our team. Cut our team resources to nothing and then demanded we hit the same KPIs/ "Do more with less". CVP withheld critical information to make the team look less effective than other parts of their business. Very nasty/intentional -- played a game of favoritism and game of thrones. Very political. HR is often weaponized by underperformers - those people then abuse managers through blind survey or filing illegitimate complaints.. No one ever held accountable for filing BS claims - can say nasty things about you and degrade you; while their lawyers try to extort the company for money. Ugly game. HR does nothing to protect front line manager. HR irrelevant and not helpful, only objectives - protect the company and $ -- use a corrupt process. Became concerned for my safety and my family's safety as one employee that was mentally unhealthy threatened me personally. The most toxic environment imaginable.

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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