Company: Microsoft
Date: 2010-10-10
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current

Management at Microsoft
Pros: Microsoft offers their employees excellent benefits and good financial compensation.

The campus facilities are generally well-designed and equipped.

As in any large corporate, there are many different businesses and teams.  This offers more opportunities to change jobs but remain at the same company.

Microsoft has wonderful benefits and programs to support local and global nonprofits and communities in need.  I am proud of this, as well as the quality work done in Windows 7.

Until recently, I have had a great experience as an employee.  This is because of the managers I've had until the present one.  My prior managers were genuinely interested in their direct reports' careers and facilitated an open honest environment.    This led to highly functioning teams and delivery excellence.
Cons: Perhaps with the downturn of the economy, large and small layoffs, the company atmosphere has changed.  There used to be a mission and vision that drove each organization to aspire for excellence.  Due to major reorgs, the management of my org has dramatically changed.  I see no passion in my leadership about their jobs or their people.

My present manager is new in role, recently promoted based on politics.  Classic corporate shark, has risen to group manager by backstabbing, taking credit for others' work, pretending to care about the company while consistently making choices for personal gain, hiding mistakes by blaming others, and providing special treatment to people willing to collude.  Senior management, by not taking corrective action, has in essence supported this behavior because it "gets results".  They don't know the "results" are sugar-coated distortions of poor quality, created by coercion and collusion, with lots of bodies along the way.  They don't realize the long term detrimental effects to the company as these people rise in management and continue to make decisions in their own best interest.  

We have lots of consulting vendors who are former Microsoft employees.  The majority of them left the company due to the management in their organization; i.e., bad bosses.  I may be joining them soon.

Anyone considerating a career at Microsoft:  make sure you research your potential manager.  This person will have a direct impact on your job satisfaction and success.