Company: Microsoft
Date: 2008-10-13
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Your mileage will vary
Pros: Experience:
 - mature products
 - established processes
 - people

Mature products
If you come from college, this company is a great place to work at. It teaches you to look at the software creation in more established and pragmatic way, like building a house. Gone are the days in the 90s where there were deadlines to be kept and teams did burn through weekends just to keep them. Today, such things still exist, however, they are more on individual basis, and they are not the norm.

People
 - generally, the hiring process assures that MS gets the top of the cream.
Cons: Pretty much the same things that make this corporation great, come with their negative load too.

Size
THis cmpany has grown (this is my individual opnion) way too big. WHile I am sure this is all justified properly by valid business reasons, the size weights on.

Mature products
If you are looking for brand new exciting new projects, they definitely do exist within MS. However, thera are good chances that you may end up in one of the big teams (Windows, Office, etc). While it is very exciting to work on some of the applications you have been using since childhood, maintaining them comes with a price. Words such "legacy code", "backwards compatibility", "cannot change existing behavior, even if it is being wrong" come to mind.