Company: Microsoft
Date: 2009-04-20
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

Promise lost...
Pros: Great benefits.  Good pay.  A fair amount of autonomy though not nearly as much as when I first started in 2000.
Cons: A lot was made of stock options as part of your compensation when I first started.  Well, every one of my options has been seriously underwater for several years, basically worthless.  Mid management churn led to me having 7 bosses over a period of 5 years, 6 of whom were a disaster and 4 who were brought in from outside in lieu of promoting anyone from my level.  hard to build a rapport with your boss when you only work for them for 8 or 9 months.  Only 2 years was the manager I started the year with the same one to do my performance review.  Constant new programs and reorganizations aimed at getting the company re-energized just cause churn and confusion and most are scrapped within a year to make room for the new batch of bright ideas cooked up in Redmond.  In all, my 'user experience' has seriously deteriorated over the past 8 years.