Company: Microsoft
Date: 2013-09-08
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

10 years
Pros: Flexibility, new benefit plan isn't as good as old plan but it's fair when you read about the cost of benefits to a company, stable, good resources, access to training, pro club
Cons: Stack ranking with a forced distribution is demotivating and old school.  Now that Ballmer is leaving maybe someone will finally figure out how this entire process needs to go.  It's very political and who lands the high scores has to do with who gets the most face time with the decision makers.  I had 4 managers this year and that alone puts you at a disadvantage b/c they don't know what you did so they can't advocate for you. They just give you an average score and say  "you need to have impact across Microsoft" to get a better score next year.  It's a standard line every managers uses. The HR reorg is a disaster.  They've stepped back 10 yrs - not forward.