PFE in Washington DC area - Senior Premier Field Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Nov 23, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The pay and benefits are excellent. There are some really smart, dedicated people working on fun projects. There is some respect from non-Microsoft colleagues for Microsoft employees.

Cons

Muddled, unaccountable, big middle management. PFEs have an Account Manager as a person manager, and they work with TAMs and often other Project Managers, Architects, etc. in the course of their work. I notice that Account Managers are often not only maladroit with respect to Microsoft technology, but technology in general. And they often are really poor managers. Microsoft has a 'connect' process that HR instituted to force managers and employees to talk several times a year. Often, Account Managers view this as a checkbox, and it's symptomatic if their not putting much effort into managing people. TAMs are supposed to be Technical Account Managers, but often they are neither technical nor managers. You can't have a grown-up conversation with TAMs, often, because they don't understand the technology. They are supposed to be bridge between the customer and the technical PFEs, but I have seen a lot of slacker TAMs who actually just make PFEs life more difficult. And I've heard customers say that they want the good work that PFEs do, but they don't want to pay for the exorbitant associated costs of having to also pay for ADMs, TAMS, etc. etc. Career advancement within various fiefdoms is not based on technical merit or utilization or even how valuable you are to your customer, but based on 'go along to get along' mentality and kissing up to management.

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5.0
Jul 6, 2026
Anonymous temporary employee
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

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Cons

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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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