Company: Microsoft
Date: 2016-05-23
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Good talking points,  but actions fall short of words
Pros: Excellent benefits,  decent salary,  and offices were well maintained.  Cambridge office was in an excellent location.
Cons: Hierarchical top-down management requires significant amount of influence to get anything done. Calibration of employees (stack ranking) with a required 5% yearly attrition rate can cause managers to fire good employees over time.  If you are not progressing to the next career level fast enough,  you fall to the bottom of the stack. Some people do not want to be promoted to a role they will not be happy with. Work-life balance was a term thrown around a lot,  but people were generally overworked despite that.