Work here only if you're type A and play to win at all costs - Senior Manager Level Microsoft Employee Review

2.0
Jun 9, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- good pay and benefits - wealth of information and knowledge on company intranet - intelligent coworkers, nice people do exist below the Director level - lots of job opportunities and global mobility if you can handle the game - casual attire every day - free Starbucks coffee

Cons

I read most of the 1 and 2 star reviews here for worst case scenario before I took the offer, hoping to be one of the luckier ones to land a decent team and boss. No such luck. Everything you read under the Cons section is true. Easily my worst work experience in 15 years crossing a number of public corporations in different industries. - aggressive, competitive, super political culture - management by fear and intimidation - if you are coming from a different industry or company, think twice or more, new people are easy target, you will not get help - the Microsoft values posted are the very things they don't practice - certain people make you think you're on Survivor, others make you feel you're in The Emperor's New Clothes - 12-14 hour days (and I'm in a non-tech role) - I was advised by well-intentioned colleagues to only do what's visible to execs in Redmond even when it means screwing your local team over, it's all about managing up just to survive - lack of guidance and direction, decision making is like throwing darts in the dark - read the other reviews on glassdoor

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5.0
Jun 27, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

good work life balance, culture and career growth

Cons

less compatitive salary compare to other big company

4.0
Jan 28, 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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