Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-09-07
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

The dream that is Microsoft is dying due to mismanagement and a poisonous culture
Pros: I actually loved Microsoft when I first started.  The projects I worked on were fun and my coworkers were a blast to work with.  While I'd only intended to be there for a year, I ended up signing on as an FTE and staying for many years thereafter.  You couldn't beat the health benefits, and the prospect for personal growth was tremendous.  You'll meet a lot of extremely passionate, extremely brilliant employees while working there, and those friendships and professional connections will last me a lifetime.
Cons: The review system is utterly broken.  It works in such a way that some people have to be the 'bad' employees, even if every single person on the team is doing a great job.  This in turn creates a culture in which employees are constantly competing with one another, rather than working together to create something great.  

I worked myself exceptionally hard for over 5 years, destroying all semblance of a work-life balance, to leave MS all of one level higher than when I joined.  Despite great reviews every year, I could not make headway in furthering my career.  When I became passionate about solving other problems, I felt punished for it, as it wasn't part of my 'core competencies' and therefore that work didn't count towards my overall output as an employee.  

Near the end of my employment, the frequency of re-organization efforts was just absurd and spoke to poor mismanagement from the executive leadership. Being uprooted and put onto new projects once in a while is one thing, but being moved around every few months with often no input as to where you'd best fit into the company gets exceptionally grating and demoralizing. 

The days in which you can manage your career at Microsoft are long gone, at least from my experience in the game division.  You are a cog in a larger machine, and will be moved accordingly when it it deemed necessary.