Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-08-01
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Surrounded by great people (Legal Department)
Pros: I've really enjoyed working in Microsoft's legal department.  Everyone around you is incredibly smart and gifted at what they do, and there's a sense of teamwork in everything we do.  The hours are really reasonable - on a normal day, it's 9 to 5 with a bit of time off for lunch.  Most of all, as an attorney, it's a lot of fun to delve into the technical details of stuff and make a difference in the technology the company is producing.  Being a huge legal department, there are a lot of opportunities for lateral and diagonal movement within the company.  I even kind of enjoy Microsoft's role as an underdog in a lot of the areas where it competes.  It's a former superpower that has seen better days, but there's a sense that it might scrap its way back to prominence.  That sense has increased since Satya Nadella took over.
Cons: It's a giant company, and that means that there's a lot of bureaucracy and it's difficult for the average worker to have much of an influence on the direction of the company.  There are constant reorganizations, which can be frustrating as you've just developed a good relationship with your legal clients, and you suddenly get new ones.  It's questionable whether senior management knows what it's doing, but Satya Nadella appears to know what he's doing more than Steve Ballmer did.  Microsoft's biggest weakness is its inability to move quickly.  We think up great ideas, but have trouble executing on them well the first time before our competitors do.  Maybe the July 2014 layoffs will make the company leaner and faster.  Time will tell.