Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-11-08
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Review stack rank undermines culture.
Pros: Cutting edge technology, smart peers, great pay and benefits.  Great for career in the industry.
Cons: The review system is a stack rank.  This means that good employees must be put into the bottom rung... someone's got to be in the bottom rung.  I always did well come review time, but just the fact that it is run this way really undermines the collaboration and creativity that could exist at Microsoft.  A very small number of folks are self serving jerks that will step on folks to work this system.  Everybody else is just unsure of who to trust and fearful of making mistakes that will be held against them.  People play it safe or work crazy hours to offset the failure associated with prototyping.  
Every talk I have with every manager I've ever had there is all about how I can 'get visibilty'.  It's not about how I can do a better job, or learn something new.