Company: Microsoft
Date: 2011-03-13
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former

Great job description, ok job.
Pros: Great benefits, work with very bright and talented people. Salary is reasonable. You get to collaborate with some of the sharpest engineering minds and learn how big complex application software product ship. There are a lot of opportunities for lateral moves, so you can always find a project to yoru liking.
Cons: Not the best place for business professionals to work, many business concepts are lacking at the management level (competitive analysis, market entry tactics, branding, core competencies). Stack rank system encourages some undesired behavior. Specifically in the planning role, if your job falls in an engineering org, you are unfairly stacked against developers and program managers. Who do you think leadership (with engineering background) is going to value more?