Company: Microsoft
Date: 2011-05-31
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Perspiration required, inspiration rewarded - sometimes
Pros: Some products are used by literally everbody in the whole world (Windows, Office, and to a lesser extent Visual Studio). Excellent benefits package, competent middle management, at least in Office. Very professional and diverse environment.
Cons: Big products - big teams = major time spent on communication. Market leading products - regulatory pains in behinds, e.g. documentation for Office Server includes every single stored procedure that's part of the product. Long-lived products - major backward compatibility issues. 

In the big teams, career advancement comes more from being risk-averse and having good communication to management than from innovation and technical prowess. To some extent, that's reasonable, but the focus is too much on the former IMHO.