There isn't a single company called Microsoft Corporation - Senior Development Engineer Lead Microsoft Employee Review

5.0
5 Jun 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I like that I am surrounded by some of the sharpest brains I have come across. I get stuck? Just walk into my neigbor's office and he'll brainstorm with me. Anytime. Doesn't matter he is 5 levels senior to me. I like that we are agile and anyone from the grass-roots to senior manangement influences what we do. I like that Microsoft will bend the rules to ensure I'm happy. Best of all, I like our software diversity. Get bored with my current job? Heck, I can join any of the 1000 teams here waiting to grab me. Tomorrow.

Cons

The software diversity of Microsoft is a boon as well a curse, depending on how it influences you. With the 1000+ teams comes a 100 different cultures and working styles. Some are more process-oriented due to the sheer magnitude of the project, some are like College environments - get it done by the deadline, doesn't matter how you do it. There's no way a company of this size can have something called a "working culture". As a newcomer, you might not like the culture of the team you join. However, on the upside, you have 100 different working cultures to choose from too! Oh, and yeah, there's no free lunch! Yet.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
5 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Learned a lot, plenty of team work opportunities

Cons

Internship could have been longer than 4 weeks

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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