Company: Microsoft
Date: 2010-06-25
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current

You learn to appreciate what working for Microsoft really means.
Pros: This perspective is from the Online Services Division, specifically the ad platform teams.

Similar to many other reviews, it is nice that we have beautiful offices, pretty decent compensation (more on this later), and super smart people.  

Unlike many other divisions, Microsoft is not the dominant force in this particular industry.  So the varied stereotypes of a "monopolistic Microsoft" or "large company intent on a closed software system" here, do not necessarily hold true.  You can see that in conversations with customers.  They want us to do well.  They want us to be a strong, viable competitor to the other big players in the online advertising industry.  This is a huge plus when it comes to the willingness of customers to work with us, especially given our big name.  It also manifests in a strong focus and collaboration among the dedicated engineering, business group and sales teams.  It's a pro in the sense that the advertising business needs to be an open ecosystem and that is refreshing if you've never worked here before.

One other pro that I'll mention is the fact that there is incredible talent in the strategy teams.  There's a ton of great strategic work going on here that you can get behind and use as your north star.  Knowing that executives are working hard to make sure we're well-positioned in the industry makes the work all the more worthwhile.  That determination is clear throughout the organization.
Cons: But it's not all rosy.  There are certainly a lot of things to be aware of, if you have never worked at Microsoft.

When I joined, I was surprised by a few things about the organization:

1)  It's true that promotions are hard to come by.  You could go on for years with pretty good annual reviews but still not be promoted for various reasons.  This is incredibly frustrating and had I known this earlier, I would have done more then rather than to learn it after several years.  But I believe it takes a certain type of person.  You need to know how to manage upwards extremely well.  Talk to your manager.  Be firm about what you want and when.  Be incredibly focused on what moves the needle.  And have great impact and influence on others.  It's easy to be distracted on other things.

2) It takes a long time to get things done.  Because it's such a large organization, great ideas take time to cultivate and turn into solid strategy, priorities, and action items.  There are so many people to get buy-in from.  But if you build the relationships and understand how the system works, you learn to factor that into your daily work and projects.  If you come from an entrepreneurial background and you are used to doing things quickly or on a whim to test out, etc, then I would caution you to think hard about this.  Get used to simple things sometimes taking months to complete.

3) There are a lot of managers here who don't do a good job of balancing both their individual contributions with their managerial responsibilities.  It's definitely hard because a manager wants their team to perform well but they also want to contribute directly to the organization's success.  Balancing this effectively is hard and few do it very well.