Company: Microsoft
Date: 2015-05-19
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Director, Engineering
Pros: As you would expect, Microsoft is a very interesting and dynamic company.  When we joined after the Nokia acquisition, we were very interested in getting to know a little about Microsoft from the inside.  Nokia was one of the biggest acquisitions made by Microsoft and that change along with the already significant changes going on removing silos was an interesting thing to observer and try to understand.
Cons: We were already in a precarious situation at the time of the acquisition and I was glad to see Microsoft move fairly quickly to make decisions on the future of all of the Nokia phone businesses.  It was assumed and became clear that all they were interested in was the Windows Phone business and announced 3 months after the deal closed that they were shutting down the rest.  From that point on, it was clear that our teams were going to be shut down as well, but it took another 9 months for that to happen without a real idea of when it would be.

It would be best to work at a main Microsoft/Nokia site (i.e. Redmond or Finland).  Otherwise, like most companies, not going to live for long.  However, the sales and consulting roles in different regions are an exception.