Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-10-19
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

Great company being taken down by a new CEO.
Pros: Good benefits - health insurance is good (but was better as a PPO before being a high deductible HSA), free sodas, choice of wellness benefits (fancy gym membership or money for sports extracurriculars), on sight locker rooms with towel service, charity giving match, opportunities for free products, reduced cost software.  

If you get on a good team they become like a second family (which is good because work life balance can be bad - see cons).  

Fair and reasonable time off -- 3 weeks vacation to start, with an extra week at 6 years, and another at 12; 10 sick days, 2 floating holidays, plus 8 company holidays.  Many managers are willing to be flexible if you need a half day, or run out of sick time to let you make it up in other ways.

Commute options are good - free parking, complimentary bus pass, plus company run shuttle service (The Connector)
Cons: New CEO is taking things downhill fast by getting rid of test teams. Quality of internal releases has been getting worse for the last 6+ months with no sign of getting better.

They tout positive work life balance, but if your product is at all behind, which happens often, you'll be working more hours than you can imagine.  You don't earn comp time, so you have to just suck it up if they say you need to work a weekend.

If you get an unjustified poor review you have little to no recourse.  If you happen to get on a bad team, or a team with ineffective managers who won't stand up for you, you are screwed.  Good luck trying to transfer, because other teams will be wary due to the review.  

Re-orgs happen ALL the time.  This can make it incredibly difficult to have any sense of stability in your role, because you will regularly have a new manager.