This is a great field if you enjoy dead-ends - Program Manager II Microsoft Employee Review

1.0
14 Sept 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Microsoft used to be a fantastic place to work, and sometimes you run into enthusiastic people who remember when it mattered to ship quality products.

Cons

I can't say enough about the turbulence and lack of direction present across Microsoft. It really is going through a transitional period. Do not consider working here unless you're coming out of college and need a break-in job. Do not spend more than two years here, there is little potential for long-term careers. In fact you will ultimately find yourself worked out of the system unless you're prepared to pull out the knives and join in the political "kill or be killed" assassination orgy. Product groups are regularly gutted and redirected on the whims of political maneuvering. There is little strategy or direction. Any other company would've imploded by now and really only a few business groups are supporting the weight of the entire company.

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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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