Company: Microsoft
Date: 2017-03-23
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former

Almost the perfect employer (if the work matches your skills)
Pros: If the job really matches your passions and abilities and you are truly bright and capable, Microsoft Netherlands is one of the best employers you can find:
- Attractive employment conditions like salary, stock options, bonus, car, etc.
- The New World of Work: Unlimited freedom to work at each moment from wherever you like: home, office, customer site. This works as long as you provide results, i.e. meet and exceed your targets. When not you will be asked to leave - which is fair as freedom and perks bring responsibilities.
- Very motivated and bright colleagues (nearly everyone), also genuinely helpful and well-meaning
- Managers (in the country organization) are cool and capable
- You have the opportunity to be active, connect with everyone else in the company (like the product groups), do interesting stuff, innovate, start initiatives and be supported in that.
- You have the tools to develop your career further, study and move to new areas.
- You have a lot of flexibility to do your work as you find best. No hard prescriptions, processes etc. The price you pay? You need to get results (which again is a fair deal).
- Last but not least - a truly interesting work where you can truly excel and even innovate
Cons: - The workload is high (more of a observation than a real disadvantage). It's just how the deal is by Microsoft - you get quite a lot, and you need to achieve accordingly.
- (Cross-group) collaboration: Although all colleagues are well-meaning, there can be clashes when your respective objectives and interests do not match. This could result in either you don't getting traction with other colleagues and organizational units or result in others actively working in an opposite direction. So you need to be able to cope with that.
- Too many internal tools. There might be a lot of tools you need to appease in your daily work. Which to an extent is like administrative overhead - present in more or less any job, but ask around about the specific unit/position you are considering.
- (Management) scorecard focus. As an American company which also heavily utilizes The New World of Work there is logically a focus on measuring results - which at times could feel a bit overwhelming.