Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-02-20
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

Better to be a permanent employee rather than a contractor
Pros: People have mutual respect for each other and there is great cross-functional collaboration between teams.  Microsoft is the leader in its field, which is great for your CV/future prospects.  The staff restaurant offers a good choice of hot and cold food and it subsidised so is good value, although not so good as it used to be as they have switched companies.
Cons: I am a contractor, (and do the same job as permanent staff in my team, but with no career prospects or benefits).  This sucks.  MS are so worried about contractors taking them to court regarding benefits, so offer nothing at all, to be on the safe side.  There was a case in the US where a contractor was doing the same job as a permanent person and took them to court so they got burnt..

MS is not as dynamic as it could be (although they try to be, but hire the wrong type of staff).  Since they moved from being a startup, they are like any other established company and creativity has been stifled).  There are  a lot of politics here and promotion is based on who you know, not what you know.