Company: Microsoft
Date: 2021-04-15
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Probably the best big tech company to work for
Pros: + Only one of the big tech companies that isn't embroiled in controversy for the kind of harm being done to society, being anti-competitive, having their users be THE product, or being investigated by Congress.
+ Really took care of employees during COVID-19 - for example, Cafe staff were still paid as though they were working full time even though the campus was closed
+ Awesome mission, and probably the most mature culture 
+ Relatively high concentration of talent - you can easily find role models 
+ Work has humongous impact that generally improves productivity, empowers people and organizations, and improve lives.. and because the company does so much open source or uses so much open source, a lot of the work you do has high visibility. I mean imagine being a VS Code engineer...
+ Culture
+ The company takes work life balance and running enduring, sustainable teams very seriously.
Cons: - It is a huge company so there will be some teams that are not as well run, and some teams where there's unfortunately a higher than normal concentration of "old mindset" people 
- Microsoft does not pay the best out there. If you're optimizing for direct compensation, this might not be the place for you. Instead, it generally looks at the overall "deal".
- It's a great place to "grow up" and build a career, but being loyal generally also means that not only are you not super well paid to begin with, the rate that your compensation adjusts naturally also does not keep to pace if you were to jump between companies.