Company: Microsoft
Date: 2013-09-17
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

When I joined MSFT I received this advice:  Here is a rope.  You can either run with it or hang yourself.
Pros: When in sales or business development it is great to work for a recognized brand.  I have never had problems getting meetings with potential customers and partners.  Stability.  Reasonable pay.  Good stock award plan.  Good benefits.  Lots of career potential.
Cons: Highly political and lots of people spending most of their time looking good instead of actually getting work done.  The infamous rating system really drives the wrong behaviour.  Innovation is very slow, which too often puts us on the back foot when trying to compete.  Realistic, pragmatic and constructive criticism of our company is not appreciated.  We are all just supposed to be positive about everything all the time and not raise any suggestions for improvement.  Hard to change processes even if it makes infinite sense.