Company: Microsoft
Date: 2015-03-13
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Great benefits. Little work/life balance.
Pros: Microsoft offers great benefits (the BEST benefits back when I was employed, but I hear they're still good).  If you're looking to learn about business best practices and cutting edge ways of going to market, this is a great place to do that.
Cons: The biggest challenges are work/life balance and stack-ranking. They say "Microsoft will take all that you give it," and the expectation is that you give it your all -- at night, over the weekend, instead of your child's sporting events, etc. Then, with stack-ranking (which I heard they've since done away with), you're always competing with your peers to work as much/hard as they do. As someone that had a family to take care of, it was frustrating to have to compete with my 20-something peers that gave their lives to the company to prove their worth. Not all teams had these same challenges (but many do), so if you're interviewing with Microsoft, please be sure to ask about the team's expectations and views on work/life balance with the hiring manager.