Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-05-10
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

OK place to work  - Would *not* recommend to a new grad unless you get a great group
Pros: Good pay, 
Stable job, 
Lots of technical resources,
MSR has tons of cool stuff going on (but you need a phd to join)
Cons: Slow-moving (though some groups are getting faster),
Hard for young, passionate people to make a true impact - stifles your desire to want to keep trying to change things,
Stuck in MSFT tech stack (.NET),
Bad resume brand if you ever want to go to a smaller company,
Too many PMs often slow things down instead of help,
Can develop a bad mentality as dev since focusing on testing is "not your job",
Benefits aren't as good as companies in the Bay area,
Management/teams are very hit and miss,
Culture just isn't that exciting- lot's of 10+year vets (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but it doesn't seem like many people are eager to shake things up.
Many teams don't seem all that necessary (their cost:output doesnt warrant existence), or don't have clear goals (think internal tool teams, etc)

As a young person, I think it's probably better to end up at a place like Microsoft later in your career.