Company: Microsoft
Date: 2013-06-05
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Great company but has SERIOUS management issues
Pros: The medical plan is top-notch, by far from any other company. 

All the auxiliary perc'c are very nice, such as the health plan, fitness plan, etc. 

Very bright individuals at this company... drinking the coolaid is and will be expected.
Cons: For a serious and real example of how this company treats their staff… read Vanity Fairs article in the “Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant”. I lived through it as a top performer, and it’s a political mess that senior ‘C’ level exec’s designed to remove the waste… but didn’t calculate political capital between the managers. So you have talented people exiting with the sloth’s maintaining their lazy path forward. 

The compensation plan is seriously designed to reward average employees, pay low performers low salaries, and make high performers run to other companies. 

If you want it done… you MUST leverage the correct people and watch out for sabotage. 

Tenure at Microsoft is huge! Expect to wait in a long line to get promoted.