Great benefits; Bad middle managers - Software Development Engineer II Microsoft Employee Review

3.0
6 Apr 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great benefits - PTO (3-5 weeks), 2 weeks Sick Leave, 4 weeks Paternity/12 weeks maternity leave PTO, very good health plan with HSA (employee has to pay out-of-pocket until a deductible is met, company contributes too; Plan was great till end of 2012), individual office with lots of privacy - this is a great plus if you are coming from a cubicle culture, flexible hours, great infrastructure, lots of smart engineers, good pay compared to others in the Seattle area. If you can shut yourself off of the middle management incompetency and maintain a good relationship with everyone, you'll get a steady growth. Work-life balance in general is very good with 40-50 hours though it depends on the team where you may have to put in 60+ hours and weekends. Consider working for a core team if you want to be around smart engineers.

Cons

Managers push busy work. Generally incompetent middle managers - tons of politics. It's not what you contribute that counts - it is your relationship with your lead and his/her manager that weighs heavily in your reviews. Most middle managers cannot get a job outside of Microsoft - even if they did, they cannot get the benefits that Microsoft offers so they stick on. Getting things done can be a pain. Most non-core teams have incompetent team members at almost all levels. There are frequent re-organizations across the company. It is common to go through 7-10 managers in a period of 5-6 years and it affects growth badly even if you are very smart. Most managers lack the maturity to be managers.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

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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