Microsoft, Room for improvement - Director Program Management Microsoft Employee Review

3.0
6 Aug 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Microsoft has a very extensive breadth of opportunity, across a variety of job functions and product lines. Transitioning between products is encouraged (as long as it is not taken to an excess). Most product lines have an amazing ability to make a broad and global impact on people's lives. In specific roles, your work can make a tremendous difference to the success of a product. To top it all off, there is a relatively fantastic benefits package, especially when you factor in healthcare costs.

Cons

As a large company, your ability to impact the stock price signficantly as an individual is non-existent and you must rely on less lucrative reward systems which are and highly competitive. Due to its size and approach, Microsoft does not invest in business opportunities that are small, even if the relative payback ratio could be high, resulting in a diminished entrepeneurial capability. The company has an adolescent management culture, without functioning and proven frameworks for growing its next set of leaders. The competitive review rating system ensures that folks that are great contributors but have reach the highest level of competence are forced out to competitors after a time.

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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