Company: Microsoft
Date: 2017-03-12
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Great place to work, great company, but you can end up in a "Microsoft bubble"
Pros: + Strong vision and company direction
+ Great benefits (although not as great as they used to be)
+ A lot of openness and trust among peers, at least in the field organization
+ Strong emphasis on career development
+ Culture of mobility within the company - changing roles and moving to different divisions is encouraged; you don't get stuck in a "career track" if you don't want to
Cons: - Career opportunities outside Redmond can be limited
- Layoffs do happen (that's why I'm no longer there after 12+ years). I could have applied for other internal roles, but decided it was time for a change, because...
- Microsoft has such an all-encompassing worldview regarding technology and their products, that it's easy to fall into the "bubble" of thinking that Microsoft's solutions should be the answer to everything. "Why would anyone ever use <alternative product> when Microsoft has <X>?" The rest of the world doesn't see things that way, even generally pro-Microsoft partners and customers, so it's easy to get out of touch with the rest of the tech world.