Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-07-02
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

Great for Some
Pros: Generally they do a good job of renumerative things. This not really a company of 200,000. It is more like 2000 companies of 100 people, so an experience can vary dramatically. They really know how to ship software that has 1,000,000 or more seats / customers. They are the worlds best at being number two (or later) to a market. They probably have one of the best marketing groups out there.
Cons: Way too hard to invent here. If your stuff doesn't fit in one of their five ship vehicles (Windows, Office, SQL Server, Bing/Live, Azure) it won't make it in anything. They have no interest in new products unless they can bring in $2B+ in the first three years. Their recruiting is very poor. You really need a personal contact to make progress.