Just dont get impress by brand name. HR ready to fool you (Specially at MSIT). - Lead Quality Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

2.0
7 Feb 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good talent around you Good Campus Facilities better than Service based cos (but not product based ones)

Cons

HR people show the compensation blown up. Do not have faith on their words unless they give things in writing. They will hire you at title of lead\manager but when you enter you willfind it equivalent to Sr.Engg or lead i.e. 1 level down (Why as they have different concept of internal and on paper title). Facilities similar to service based companies. You will definitely regret in terms of facilities if you are coming from Product based companies. I was amazed to see that people are getting laptops which are outdated. No Free lunches, No snacks items, A big campus where people have to walk under direct sun or rain after parking their vehicles. Environment of dissatisfaction among both old and new employees. Only people who have stayed a long time in Redmond and are in good position wants to be here. New employees feels like they have been cheated if they are moving here from any other product based company. Contractors are treated like people of lesser dignity. Overall: Not so good place to work specially if you are coming here from a good product based company. Do not get impress by the Brand name.

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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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