Company: Microsoft
Date: 2010-09-12
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

It all depends on your manager and your group.
Pros: In 9 years at Microsoft, I've had 7 managers. I've had various positions including SDET and PM. The best times I had were when I had the good luck of working in a department with a culture that was a good fit for me, with managers who were very supportive and had a genuine interest in helping me advance my career. Since it's a very big company, if you find out that the group you're working in is not a good fit, there might be plenty of options to transfer internally to another group. I have worked in various groups, from games, to developer tools, to research, to Windows, all with very different cultures.
Cons: It's easy to get lost in the bureaucracy and feel like an anonymous cog in a wheel. One common problem I experienced in all my microsoft positions is that there's always quite a bit of overhead in your job to learning internal processes and navigating the bureaucracy.