Company: Microsoft
Date: 2012-06-05
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

Great peer workers, great technologies but demotivating, anxiety-causing and random review process.
Pros: My immediate peers are a great group of folk to work with. There is bureaucracy as in any large organization but there are tools in place to alleviate some of that. Most of the technologies being developed are great with good customer acceptance. The overall benefits are OK though in 2013 there will be some big changes to the health plans in the USA with our estimation causing about an additional $200 out of pocket per month for an average family.
Cons: The performance review. I've been fortunate to score well with three promotions in seven years. However, I've seen superstars get poor reviews only because they scored lower on a peer curve than "super" super stars. The curve needs to go and the curve is the result of too many management layers causing director-levels not spending enough time people managing. In the last few years I've seen co-workers simply go elsewhere taking all that knowledge and skills assets with them because of the curve.