Solid, but at times frustrating - Lead Software Development Engineer Microsoft Employee Review

4.0
28 Sept 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

As an SDE, you are given a lot of freedom at Microsoft to design your feature from a technical pespective. There isn't a lot of second guessing, and you can use the tools you prefer for the most part. Benefits are A-rate (although the $1500 limit on dental can be costly depending on your situation... but that is the only real limit). There is a huge swath of products the company works on, and it's relatively easy to move around (18 month commitment per group). Co-workers are generally top-notch... you can learn from them. Open and constructively critical culture for the most part.

Cons

My main issue recently has the been the rewards system. Basically, rewards are given out based on a stack rank system. A group of even 40 people must fit the curve, and every such group is basically given the exact same pool of money to start with. The result is that, perversely, you really don't want to be a strong team because it's going to be more competitive. There is no accountability for product failure in the market. Every level x SDE in the company is getting paid the same range, no matter what the status of their product. Every dev group (for example), is getting the same pool of rewards. Work expectations in terms of both time and competencies are supposed to be standardized across the firm, but it isn't even close to equal. Recently my group interviewed a bunch of devs from another group whose project was finally cancelled (a rarety!) and none of them could make our hiring bar. I'm starting to shop for the internally weakest group I can so that I can do less work for the same outcome.. it's really quite stupid.

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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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