Big boat with constant reorganization - Principal Microsoft Employee Review

1.0
21 May 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Microsoft has fanatic product and solutions offering with solid training programs. Excellent benefits.

Cons

No one cares... your boss, they better be strong and have backbone and conviction or you may experience an awful work environment. This isn’t similar to other companies, this is a constant within Microsoft. Let me give me context. Yes - MICROSOFT is obsessed with diversity but this also means that often the best qualified person didn’t get the job. I’ve watched this happen time and time again. When you interview or “loop” if there isn’t enough diversified candidates then MICROSOFT will redo the interview process - EVEN if a highly qualified candidate was available. Every year there’s a high probability you’ll end up in a reorg. In 5 years I was caught in 4 organizations. Unproductive and confusing to both employees and customers. MICROSOFT is not customer obsessed. Moving roles constantly makes it hard to know your customer well and add value. Every year my new customers made it a point to let me know how upset they were with the constant shifting. This is a company you go to out of college then leave! There’s little stability and unless you’re a minority (which I am, a woman) you’ll struggle with promotions even if you’re a rock star.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
5 Jul 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Discretionary Time Off and Benefits Work life balance

Cons

Ambiguity and constant change isn’t for everyone. High performance work culture, but the pay doesn’t match.

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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