Company: Microsoft
Date: 2011-05-31
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

Tough times at the Borg
Pros: Microsoft is a very different place these days. Far from the vilified, all consuming behemoth at war with everyone from Corel to Novel to the DoJ it's a much humbler creature, but it's collected some very smart people who've got a huge range of experience of every phase of that journey. If you want an environment where you are working with some of the smartest people in the industry Microsoft is still a good place to head
Cons: The downside of having a large pool of smart people is that there are also a lot of egos and a lot of very political survivors who are not adept enough at getting a job outside Microsoft... but they have worked out how to deal with the political landscape and HR policies to survive.

HR is another major downside at MS. A forced curve rating system means for most people the competition isn't Google, Apple or Oracle... it's their peers. Unless you play that game (to the detriment of the way we are seen outside the office) you will lose. The health plan used to be amazing, now it's just merely good. If you're young and single it's find, but older folks or those with a family might want to consider that