Company: Microsoft
Date: 2017-07-16
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

Great company, but a lot depends on the team
Pros: Great company to work for, reasonable pay, good benefits and social package, great incentives for long term (stocks). Lot's of opportunities if you can relocate to US.
Cons: It really depends a lot on the team. Below remarks relate to my last team in London. 

The team I worked for was really very chaotic, no long term vision or planning, the product managers' engagement was very little. Very little concern for design or architecture considerations. Contradictory goals for different teams working on the same product. Little regard for testing or quality. 

No team work culture whatsoever. This results from the remuneration and incentive rules and the management style. People pressed for individual success, scorecards, few people care about product design, maintainability, extendibility or for the product quality. 

Illusion of work-life balance. Despite claiming the company cares for it, there is a huge pressure for feature work, and if you take into account lack of design, teamwork, poor testing, etc, this is paid for with private long hours developers need to spend at the office to compensate. 

I am truly sorry, to say all this, as I think this is a great company to work for. Nonetheless, a lot depends on the manager, their individual goals or aspirations, the work culture they promote. It's simply down to the team you end up with. I wasn't lucky with my last team, I guess.