Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-09-15
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Can be great, but watch your back
Pros: Scope of what you can work on is huge and the ability to move around and learn more is great as long as you are in good standing.   There are plenty of places to eat on campus and the commute is relatively inexpensive due to free parking and shuttle (if you can get a seat).  The company is largely staffed by very talented engineers, for the most part.  Get on a team that has a clear mission to solve customer pain and you can have a great time and learn a lot.   As with all large companies, career progression tends to follow the calendar so don't expect to get promoted every year unless you align with a benefactor who can push you along.  Even then, the further you move up, the fewer seats there are and the more entrenched long-termers you end up having to compete with for the next gig.
Cons: Flat stock price results in a lot of folks trying to claw their way up the corporate ladder rather than building better products for customers.  Depending upon your manager, you can have a great experience or it can be a soul-sucking personal experience if you let it get to you.  Due to it's nature, the company tends to be very insular and has just recently began to look at innovation outside of the company.  Many folks there have only worked at MSFT so they have a very slanted view on how the rest of the world works.  If you stay there too long, you risk being branded as "institutionalized" and nom-emplyable outside of MSFT unless you maintained and developed skills outside of the MSFT ecosystem.   The company is aging and, while many organizations are modernizing their way of building products, others are still trapped in the 90's under leaders (partner-level) who are making too much money to step aside and create growth opportunities for the next generation of leaders.  

For folks who have held senior positions elsewhere: Expect to be compensated well, but your prior experience means nothing.  There is very little respect for experience in other companies unless you're a bounce back from Amazon, Facebook, or Google to get a level bump.  It's a place that values shipping at Microsoft over everything else.  

Lastly, it has become a company of dissimilar factions and cultures.  The notion of One MSFT is laughable.  It's a culture of fiefdoms and alliances that are more concerned about protecting turf than delighting customers.  Ultimately, I saw that the change in leadership was more about Wall Street than customers.