Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-10-05
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Room for Improvement
Pros: Worked at MS 1996 - 2006, returned in 2011, 2012 as contract employee
Upside? - strong brand; market advantage; access to resources; with luck and a lot of searching, you can locate opportunity to grow under tutelage of a good manager and/or mentor.  Lots of smart people, who are sometimes (it's uneven) encouraged to behave entrepreneurially.
Excellent benefits.  Infrastructure for continuing education, inside/outside company. Formal articulation, career paths.
Cons: Today: 96K FTEs, >70K contract employees.  Not a sustainable model.  In my recent return as contractor, the most critical functions of the group were being outsourced.  Not uncommon, and quite unhealthy.  I had the impression the company is coasting, vs. augmenting competitive status.
Continued difficulty coming up with an eval/comp system that gets the best results, near and long -term.  Vision for human capital has become somewhat hidebound - e.g. "once a tech PM, always a tech PM"
Culture largely fear-based, which inhibits cooperation, team-building, max creativity and ROI.  I saw the worst "back-stabbing" behavior during the two recent contract gigs - quite noticeable.
Loss of strategic vision, especially technological, since Bill Gates' departure - witness, failures like Kin (a Windows phone).  MS has lost a lot of executive talent which is has failed to replace, and has tolerated quite a few executives (I mean GM level and above) who should have been culled long ago.  Lack of exceptional leadership has demoralized rank-and-file.  A direct quote from group leader: "Make the decision that insures I don't lose my job."  Yes, that was the sole criterion provided for business guidance.