HR is ruining Microsoft - Support Team Manager Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Jul 26, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The benefit package is outstanding and makes it easy to find service providers; The casual work environment is very conducive to brainstorming & problem solving. The ability to go into work each day and work with some of the smartest, most creative people on the planet. Generally speaking, these are educated, outspoken, opinionated yet tolerant, caring people who love to give their all, do a good job, beat the competition, and have fun while doing it. Morale money is allocated each month per employee to go to movies, play paintball, etc. Friendships forged at Microsoft tend to outlast your employment - it really is a people place to work.

Cons

Human resources has gradually ruined managements ability to hire the best person for the job. Too many limitiations on formal education vs. experience and ability. Ridiculous hiring questions that have absolutely nothing to do with the job being performed tend to weed out the truly smart and capable, as they have little tolerance for the idiocy imposed. Stack ranking: where a room full of team managers take turns throwing various employees to the lions in exchange for the ability to promote and reward a select few - usually based on the select fews having worked on "projects" i.e., having performed the manager's job. Shift in recent years away from using metrics - allegedly. Case closure, MPI, survey results, days to close - these used to be primary factors in job promotion and performance reviews. They are being gradually replaced with more subjective criteria - easier to throw an employee to the lions, harder to defend a truly dedicated, qualified engineer who hasn't worked on some high visibility management pet project.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jun 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- excellent benefits - invests in long term of employees - not in forefront of tech but has always been a good follower - company reinvents itself. - established engineering processes - promotes career mobility within

Cons

- not the topmost in salary and compensation - work is not fast paced. Can get boring for those who like start up culture - some teams are full of team members who have worked in the same team and product for decades. Lacks innovation - company going through a lot of changes as they reinvent in the era of AI

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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