Company: Microsoft
Date: 2015-06-09
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

mediocre middle mgmt who are too scared to do the right thing for the company.
Pros: - Nice office space , free snack and drinks in pantry. 

- Having first hand experience on the latest technology and software/tool

- Meeting many passionate and smart people under the same roof especially in support teams who genuinely wants to make a difference for the company. 

- Flexibility to work from home / remotely with manager's approval 

- The overall compensation package for FTEs is pretty competitive in today's market ( great insurance coverage + flexi cash + medical )  

- Great exposure if one is looking for gain experience in a complex environment / working with multiple stakeholders.
Cons: - Lack of clear direction from middle mgmt and leadership team. News cascaded down are usually late or over generalised, leaving it up to your own imagination/interpretation (because you are not high-level enough) to hear the real situation. 

- Do not expect any kind mentorship on your own career growth. The middle mgmt managers are too caught up with their personal agenda and 'showing visibility' to their intended target audience trying secure their own jobs/ looking for next move. They have little interest in being mentors to their directs nor investing time to make their own team successful. 

- Despite hiring all the highly qualified and skilled candidates, the management has little tolerance for alternative voice. The mid level managers generally expects 'Yes' man, no questions asked type of behaviour. They will also resort to petty and biased actions to get back at you for 'disobeying' them by giving you a negative testimonial/performance appraisal. period.

- The open secret is : How well you climb in this company is not truly dependant on your performance but how well you network and show your visibility to the right people. Quarter after quarter, it encourages people to form alliance to "scratch each other's back". Typically such alliance will come up with some random rubbish project that has no real impact to the business nor help to solve real customer issues. They use up a whole lot of resource from support teams to do all the dirty work for them and at the end of it, they get all the credits and praises for "leaning in" 

- Many of the mid level managers are long timers ( >10 years) , they know the game so well hence they are too afraid to try or do anything different for fear of losing their jobs. 

- Stack ranking. The performance review system is time consuming, a lengthy process and final evaluation is flawed & biased. Employees of the same BU & of the same ranks are pitted against each other. Only 10% will be the top performers and 20% will be average performers , leaving 70% of the entire crew falling into the lower trench. What's the point of making 70% of the crew feeling like they are failures in their job when they are not ??  Of course, MS have since embarked on new review system that is less time consuming but the methodology of grading the staff has not yet evolved - basically new skin but same crappy insides.