Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-10-19
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

Big ships turn slow
Pros: A lot of very smart people, great environment to work in, and a lot of ways to learn and improve (conferences like Techready, courses, or simply learn by doing - Microsoft certainly has scale). Mobile, entertainment, business, you name it - Microsoft does it. Moving around the company is encouraged, so you can really get to learn about different things. Like any big tech company, it's also a time machine - you see and work with devices and technologies that are yet to come (sometimes years ahead).
Cons: It's a big company, and thus a country of it's own (several, actually, if you consider how diverse the Microsoft universe is with units from XBox through Windows and Office to Mobile Devices). Despite the One Microsoft initiative, in practical terms, it's still quite siloed, and with a lot of management/bureaucracy overhead, the defining factor being how well can your manager shield you from it.