Company: Microsoft
Date: 2010-03-12
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Love the company, hate the culture
Pros: Microsoft is a huge company with tons of opportunity and lots of places to work. By moving between the different divisions (MSN, Entertainment, Office, Windows) it can feel essentially like moving to a whole new company, only without losing seniority or having to figure out a new benefits package or even a new commute. The company values work/life balnce (at least my areas in it have) and there are also a lot of smart people that you work with on a daily basis. The benefits package is outstanding, and overall the company seems to truly value employee rentention.
Cons: Microsoft is middle aged, and it shows. The company has got so large that it's often impossible to get anything done. I feel like I spend 2 days per week explaing what I might do, 1 day actually doing it, and then the following 2 days defending what I just did. The company as a whole also still fundamentally fails to understand the web and how to navigate it. That said, the penny has dropped that cloud computing is coming, and will be disruptive. Either Microsoft will get on board or it will be swept away. It's going to be a bumpy ride, but in the end Microsoft will get there, and I think there's a lot of room for growth for those with the right experience to help it navigate the way.