Company: Microsoft
Date: 2014-09-01
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Great culture, New CEO making a difference
Pros: There's a great company culture at Microsoft of family first, innovation, independence and hard work.  Everyone really loves the company and the first-level managers are great. The company is very focused on career growth and making sure you are always looking forward.  They are very flexible about work hours, locations, etc. as long as you get the job done. The people are amazing!

The new CEO, Satya is really rallying the company and is doing great things. Old establishment is changing (albeit slowly)
Cons: The Sr. Leadership could really use some help. From 2nd line managers to just below the CEO, the leadership is very "inward focused" and almost used-car-salesy. It's very cut-throat at that level and you they appear to have no problem stepping on toes to move up. Also, sr. leadership looks "down" quite a bit on those with IC (individual contributor) roles.

No real career opportunities for technical leadership other than in Seattle. All field leadership is sales based and you almost have to go through the sales ranks to get leadership opportunities.  Technical roles report into sales managers, so technical people are often undervalued or have little direction.