Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-01-24
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Mixed bag of goodies
Pros: $$$.  Salary is less than Facebook or Google, but it's still significantly higher than most places.  If you do good work and make sure the right people know about it, you'll be richly rewarded.  Almost everyone here is extremely smart, so it keeps you on your toes.  I also love having my own office.
Cons: Re-orgs.  Ugh.  Considering the fact that your managers' perception of your work is more important than your actual work (like any other corporate environment), dealing with the constant trauma of re-orgs is disheartening.  A pending re-org all but guarantees that you won't get any credit for your short-term work, so if your goal is recognition and high reviews, you have to actively manage your career by finding a manager you like and following him/her through every org change.  Also, even though everyone is extremely smart, egos are very high.