The best place in the world for a software developer to work in - Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) Microsoft Employee Review

5.0
7 May 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There just is not other company like this in the world. You have the ability to do truly global, groundbreaking development work that will be deployed by thousands or millions of customers and make their daily life better or different. Also, the internal atmosphere in Microsoft Redmond is just incredible. You have the best of the best working with you, the atmosphere is relaxed, you do things and influence people based on what you know (not your title or who you know), information is shared liberally and you are part of an incredible team. However, there is no bitter fighting or competition amongst the peers, so I don't know what else to ask for. The environment is also very international and diverse, so you get to see how people around the world think. Very productive environment where you are pushed to do your very best and rewarded for it accordingly.

Cons

Opportunities for remote work are slim for SDEs and SDETs. Almost all of the product development happens in Redmond and if you can't live there, you're out of it (if you want to know why I no longer work at MS, this is the reason: I had to move out of the country for family reasons and did not find a way to continue my work with product teams and did not want to go back to the field). Also, you need to be a person that can manage your own time -- if you don't, you will get exhausted and be overworked. However, if you can manage that, you will be fine with 40-45 hour weeks in reasonable pressure. From what I have heard, teams can vary very much and (like in any large org) if you land under a poor manager, you are in trouble. Also, the MS field organization is a very different place and anything I say here does not apply for any of the subsidiaries (had some bad experience there)

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5.0
5 Jun 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
28 Jan 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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