Company: Microsoft
Date: 2009-04-11
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current

More politics than congress.
Pros: Great benefits, surrounded  by lots of raw intellect, individual offices.  Virtually unlimited resources.
Cons: The review process is in a nutshell, horrible.  On small teams the "curve" approach forces even the most talented of engineers to be in the 10% bucket.  In the test world, there is little to zero chance of advancing to Senior or Principal from level 59 - you most certainly have to leave the company and come back.  Pay is so-so compared to other companies in the bay area.  The ego's you encounter here will boggle your mind.  Microsoft hires based on raw intellect and places little to no value on the ability to communicate.  Belief that best talent should be promoted to leadership.  IC path is very unknown.  Extremely political.