Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-09-27
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former

A great, but incredibly frustrating, learning experience
Pros: There is so much to learn from working at Microsoft.  I became a much better employee both technically and professionally because of my experience.  Very nice work environment including private offices which are becoming more and more rare.  Looks great on your resume.
Cons: The culture is caustic.  Stack ranking encourages managers to find fault and assume wrongdoing where none was intended and no harm occurred.  Some managers retain underperforming employees on staff in order to avoid having to give valuable employees a poor annual rating.  There is very little room for innovation - most work at Microsoft is an attempt to copy the success of others.  This makes work unfulfilling.