The metamorphosis from Tech to a Sales & Marketing based organization is complete, congrats Steve - Senior Program Manager Microsoft Employee Review

1.0
Oct 22, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

--There are a few pockets of real innovation and passion for the customer remaining --There are still a lot of really good, passionate, folks still toiling away at the company, most of which are concentrated at the lower levels. --Wide range of products/services make it a good place for someone new to the industry "cut their teeth" and get some good exposure. 2-3 years on a single project will give you a great feel for the product, industry, and whether this is the place for you.

Cons

--Upper management, including the C level, are more concerned about their next "sale" to further their own careers, rather than building great products that excite and delight the customers. --The strategic direction of the company is not well understood, outside the company, and not much better inside. Funding for projects is mostly based upon political favoritism and/or the latest MBA prepared Powerpoint, and rarely on the real merits of the product to the marketplace. Rarely, if ever, are projects and their respective costs truly measured repeatedly for their ROI--look at Search. --Bad news is not embraced and respected; the messenger is typically shot or stamped as not being a "real team player". --The performance review process has been completely bastardized to focus on individual efforts over team/product delivery; it's more important to determine what your boss wants to see and deliver on that than what the product and/or customer need. The politics of the review process, especially the last month or two prior to the "ranking/lifeboat exercise", are more important than everything you did over the other 10 months. --No one cares what your contribution over several years meant to the company, "What did you do for me this last six months?" is all that matters. --You are one re-org away from having your career at the company terminated. If you get a bad manager, you are on your own and unless you can escape the group you will likely find yourself on the street -- Under-achieved/10

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5.0
Jun 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great benefits In federal, you can get a bonus for government clerances Good work culture Value based organization

Cons

lots of change lots of churn federal side does not align to commercial side work life balance is hard with "unlimited PTO"

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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