Company: Microsoft
Date: 2008-09-22
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former

Great place to Intern. Disheartening as a full-time job.
Pros: Great place to intern. Advise against pursuing as a full-time job over the long term. Rewards, promotions, reviews are political - not merit based. More importantly, job satisfaction has hit rock-bottom because very few groups focus on building a truly successful products. Most everyone else is following another manager's orders. Very disheartening.
Cons: The company lacks a well-defined direction. Most groups are too large and organizations are too complex that a lot of effort is being wasted. This hurts because the impact of your work ends up being fairly negligible. Too many times, when saving a project from ruin, you might contribute immensely, but it's not a feather in anyone's cap and you won't receive credit for it.