Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-10-04
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

Lots of problems but overall a good place to work for a while.
Pros: Great benefits but they are getting worse in 2013.  They will still be good but not quite golden.
Decent compensation.
Most people are very friendly and good to work with.  
It is relatively easy to move positions within the company to seek new challenges.
Cons: A lot of process is needed to guide a ship as big as Microsoft but the company is often a slave to the process instead of effectively using it as a tool.

It is a very political environment.  The best way to "succeed" is the spend a significant proportion of your time selling your accomplishments up the management chain.  It is an environment where self-promotion is key.

A lot of attention is paid to "level" of employees.  New hires are often brought in at relatively high levels but can't perform.  Despite their poor performance they continue to be chosen to lead projects because of their “level”.  There are now many people in the Principal level-band while I’d say less than half deserve to be there.

Decisions are often made at the upper management / executive levels with zero visibility provided.  Why was this product/feature cut?  Why are we putting more resources on project X?  It is expected that the worker ants will just do what they are told.  They don't need to understand why.