Great company, great culture, great team, great benefits - Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

5.0
6 Jun 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I think Microsoft is a great employer and has a great culture and great values. Most of the engineers working here are very passionate and dedicated so the learning and collaboration opportunities are amazing. The work-life balance is good and there are great perks and benefits for employees. The hires are very diverse and coming from very different backgrounds, which is great as it strongly contributes to both the personal and professional growth of the individuals and the success of the products. As it is such an international company and the majority of the employees are Expats, it is very easy to adapt in the environment and feel respected and included at the workplace.

Cons

Some products are very old and have been written in programming languages that are not used in any other companies or for any other products, so it might feel like if you spend too much time there, it would be hard to find another job - both because of the lack of practice of other coding languages, but mostly because everything is advancing very fast, new technologies emerge and you are not actively learning or practicing those.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
27 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

good work life balance, culture and career growth

Cons

less compatitive salary compare to other big company

4.0
28 Jan 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1. If you love tech, this is a great place. No doubt you'll talk tech (mostly the MSFT stack) from enterprise to consumer - from PCs to phones to Xboxes - from datacenter to desktop. 2. What were GREAT benefits are now VERY GOOD (took a small step down) but still probably better than you'll find at 99% of large corporations. If you've got family - the value of the benefits is even higher. 401k match is nice. 3. Even with it's struggles MSFT is still a cash printing machine. This means if you can keep your nose clean and do reasonable work, you can have a stable job, pay your bills, feed your family, and not worry (too much) about layoffs. The stock you own likely won't tank, but probably won't go up much either. You'll get a bonus each year and some stock. It's a decent life if you aren't looking to light the world on fire.

Cons

Brand on Your Resume: After many years of losing market share and struggling to be at the front end of innovation and the fact that there's 90,000 employees, don't think MSFT is necessarily going to be attractive on your resume to more agile and smaller companies. Managing Your Career: Make you say this out loud so it registers - 90,000 employees work there. Double that for vendors. It is VERY hard to "stand out" and move up in the company. Don't expect your manager to be much of an advocate or enabler to help you meet your career goals - they are basically trying to survive the stack rank every year too. Not familiar with the stack rank? Check out the 2012 Vanity Fair article called "Microsoft's Lost Decade".

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