Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-09-19
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Great benefits and interesting opportunities, but unclear strategy and a toxic review system.
Pros: Easily the best health benefits of any company or organization I'm aware of worldwide. Strong internal and corporate support for diversity and progressive social issues like same-sex partnerships. Wonderful corporate values.
Cons: Total lack of clarity on the company's strategic direction; Microsoft doesn't need to have a finger in every pie. The new review model (or resurrection of the old one, if you've been at the company longer than five years) creates a toxic environment of mistrust and wasteful internal competition between teammates -- from the individual contributor level all the way up through executives. As if all that weren't bad enough, it's impossible to maintain any sort of work/life balance: Expect to end up working 10-12 hours regularly, with "death marches" near releases.