Company: Microsoft
Date: 2015-07-10
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former

All spectrum of management - from crap to super stars
Pros: I have joined as a L59 and left an L61.
Big PROS are:
- (if you're lucky) having a good manager who can guide you up the career ladder and broaden your horizons
- smart-ass people. You CAN learn every day, if you want to learn.
- good compensation benefits (until idiots who dialed 911 just for a simple scratch forced MS into introducing co-payments for benefits).
Cons: - idiot managers. there are still lots of living FOSSILS who are in management positions just because they've been there for 10+ years. All my last manager was doing is still trying to write a powerpoint presentation from time to time, organize weekly meetings, and (most irritating) reminding me to mark my time off whenever I was out. I asked her what to do when I debug stuff until midnight and she didn't know what to tell me.
MS could fire half of its managers and there would not be a difference in engineering process/deliverables.
- "russian rullette" people mention online - you really don't know when you will be fired. Yes, you don't know WHEN, because they fire in such a way so that a pattern can not be established.
- the "curve". Not sure if it's still there, but having to find 5% of people to fire based on performance was a bit bad, given the strive to only hire the best. The result was dumber new hires than the people fired.
- after 6 years in the company the new hires were offered more than I had. Same level.