Microsoft a Good place to work if you want stability - Sales Manager Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
Jan 5, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Large profitable company with lots of money in the bank. There are lots of opportunities to move around within different parts of the company, like Windows, Office, Zune, MSN, Enterprise, Public Sector, Consumer, Server and also geographically. The best environment for career and benefits is in Redmond, the simply have the critical mass to support a very comprehensive benefits package that includes subsidized drinks, health center, transportation, food, etc that subsidiaries like Canada can't. In Canada we are reviewing our benefits package finally. We have not changed it in 10 years! Hopefully it will be for the better, but I hear they will still not match RRSP contributions up to the max available. Too bad since there is no other retirment program from them and the stock has not moved in 8 years!

Cons

While Microsoft always tried to avoid being become large and bureacratic that's exactly what we've become. Our fear was always that we would become IBM after the DOJ settlement. Ballmer swore up and down that we would never fall into that trap, but the reality is with our size and the constant scrutiny be governments around the world we have become this generations IBM. Everything we do is scrutinzed by lawyers first, we all have to go through training to understand what we can't and can do for customers and partners, while our smaller nimbler competitors can react much more quickly than us.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

5.0
Jul 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Comfortable and well paid. Very good work life balance

Cons

Too slow, couldn't grow. Growth depended on the team you are in. Can't leave team until SWE II

4.0
Jan 28, 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".

2374
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All