Great place to work and learn - Senior Software Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Jun 19, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

A great place to learn from very smart and experienced people. I sometimes hear from people at other employers complain about incomptent coworkers. While I do not agree with everyone (or may think they are arguing for a bad idea) I respect those around me a great deal and often find myself learning a great deal from them. Great opportunities for visibility both internally and externally. Internally, I find for the most part accomplishments are recognized and rewarded (either via advancement or individual awards). Externally, I can maybe name a handful of companies where your work will be seen and used by more people during the course of their day.

Cons

Size of the company, the anti-trust laws/rulings/settlements, and management makes coordination sometimes difficult. Can be frustrating to have projects with similar goals running that are similar but not working together. Or worse to have projects that pushing in different directions. It can sometimes feel like a few smaller compaines under one masthead rather than one unified whole. The negative perception of the company externally can at times be annoying. The myths and misconceptions regarding Microsoft are many and varied and it can take a little getting used (especially to resist the urge to correct them - which is often futile).

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very good flexibility with remote work Very good pay level at initial joining years Excellent team dynamics and coachable engineers

Cons

Very less hike post 4-5 years into the role Very good teams but as a senior has responsibility over shadow all junior work

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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