Microsoft reviews

The chance to have significant impact on products and services that are used by and are important to hundreds of millions of people around the world. And, because the company does so many different things, if you get bored or dissatisfied by what you're working on or the people you're working on, you can switch to something different very easily. From conservative cash cow with tons of process to nimble, risky startups with 5 cowboy coders, the company has all kinds of groups. The benefits are top notch - no we don't have free food but we have good food and it's not too expensive (and if we had free food I'd probably gain too much weight anyway). Also, there are pockets that do have free snacks - it depends if a group wants to spend part of its budget on snacks for the team - they typically sit in the group admin's office rather than in a microkitchen. One con is the process and bureaucracy - but the flip side is that things run incredibly smoothly. Support services, such as building maintenance & moves, IT, etc. all are well funded and make what seems like magic happen to the individual employee.

Microsoft is a good place to learn. It is big enough of a company where you can move around for a position you truely enjoy and have passion in. In general, people change role in 18 months. You can move up, across, etc. I have changed job three times in the last five years. Alhtough I am not getting promoted everyt time. I do feel that I am changing for the better. The review system is fair and "make sense". Some people complain that it is too competitive but I think it is a good way to weed out people you don't want to work with anyway.