Nice place to start for a new grad, but beware of vendor lockin. - Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Aug 8, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Microsoft offers excellent pay for relatively inexperienced developers. Even as a junior developer I was given responsibility, but I always had a mentor to aid me when I didn't know what to do. I shared an office with another developer, but I can't think of any engineering positions that had cubicles or open floor spots. There are many training sessions occurring and career progression seemed like a very formalised system - it's easy to see what you need to do to advance. Self-evaluation and goal setting is encouraged by managers. These goals and evaluations are used when determining bonuses or career progression.

Cons

Some of the internal systems seemed a little archaic. Internally, open source software, libraries or tools were viewed as hostile or at least with suspicion. I needed legal approval to use jQuery. My development computer was slow, even if I had a pair of nice monitors. 1 GB of RAM was terrible! A few of the employees seemed somewhat uninterested in their work - it was definitely a day job for them. Benefits like leave are tied to how long one has been an employee. Setting up an environment was not documented well in my team, and it was common for existing employees to not be able to help with this.

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5.0
Jun 7, 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
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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