Company: Microsoft
Date: 2010-04-26
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: current

Not a happy/healthy culture due to built-in competitive review process, inconsistent leadership quality
Pros: Great health benefits, lots of capital to invest in long-term projects, many smart people who are great to work with.
Cons: The bell-curve approach to assigning review scores that Microsoft uses is designed to promote competition.  In reality though, especially on a team of top-performers, the folks on the left side of the curve end up feeling more dis-couraged than en-couraged to compete.  Creating a competitive culture where employees must stand out relative to their peers can negatively impact teamwork & cooperation as well since those seeking a good review will spend extra effort trying to get noticed for *their* contributions.  This flies in the face of advice given by renouned leadership gurus Dale Carnegie & Stephen Covey--ironically, training/books that Microsoft provides to its employees.

Another downside I've noticed is that the company places a very high value on raw intelligence but a lot less value on leadership, management ability and human relations.  Perhaps less so now than in the past, but still Microsoft has many managers who were previously programmers who ended up in management due more to their seniority than their suitability as managers/leaders.  If you work for one of these managers, your career can suffer, especially if there are better managers whose employees are getting better career advice/support/internal PR, etc. within the group you're measured against.