Inside Your Workplace
Redmond,WA
Working at Microsoft
[ For Microsoft Corporation ] Posted February 12th, 2008 by newkid in
Work Culture:
Microsoft gives software developers a lot of personal freedom over both the work and the work environment. You can customize your office as you see, schedule your own trips and meetings, and select your own training courses. You can even work remotely from home (within reason).
For the most part, you can determine what you work on and when you will get it done. There are exceptions — tasks others ask you to do for them, external deadlines or dependencies — but these goals are set cooperatively with the management and coworkers, taking into account your interests and abilities.
Salary Benefits:
Microsoft's compensation and benefits package are still above average for the industry, and well above average for the typical American worker.
On the other hand, many benefits have eroded or disappeared during the past five years. It's public knowledge that raises and annual bonuses have diminished, option grants have been replaced with stock awards, employee stock purchase plan benefits have decreased, and cafeteria and company store prices have increased. For new employees, vacation time has been cut from three weeks to two, and new parents have to take their parental leave within 6 months instead of 12. It's not a positive trend.
Manager:
There are lot of issues with Mid Level Management. Most of the dev leads were developers first. Part of the problem is also that (unlike some companies that promote incompetence) good leads are usually promoted into higher positions quickly, so the companies best managers rise to the top. Consequently, the lower ranks are filled with managers who either have no interest in advancing up the management chain (which is fine) or else are below-average in their management skills.
Microsoft is still a great company
[ For Microsoft Corporation ] Posted February 10th, 2008 by minimsft [Software Engineer] in
Work Culture:
Work culture is pretty good. Not much work pressure. People are nice.
Position Title:
Software Engineer
Salary Benefits:
Salary is not the best of the class but benefits are.
Job Security:
Job is as secure as it can be.
Career Growth:
Career growth is great. Plenty of opportunities.
Manager:
I hate my manager. She doesn't know how to manage and grow people.
Overall Comments:
Microsoft is a great place to work if you can handle Redmond weather.
Good exposure and lot of opportunities to work on different technologies
[ For Microsoft Corporation ] Posted September 14th, 2007 by sleeplessseattle in
Overall Comments:
Overall Microsoft is a great company to work for:
1) Excellent salary and other incentives
2) Opportunity to work in several different groups, products and different technologies.
3) Smart motivated people and fun atmosphere.
Experience worth having
[ For Microsoft Corporation ] Posted September 10th, 2007 by abind in
Work Culture:
There is a lot of focus in providing you a good work/life balance. There are periodic reviews/surveys where you can let the higher management know if your manager is giving you too much work and your reviews will be given good attention.
Career Growth:
Employee's respect - IC's (individual contributors) are valued much more at microsoft than at any other company. It's the developers that drive projects more than PMs.
Growth/career potential - Great exposure. You have the flexibility of switching to different product groups and trying out different roles.
Overall Comments:
Hiring process at microsoft is highly overrated. I found it strictly average. Thankfully they don't ask stupid puzzles anymore. Talking incessantly and confidently while also making sense is the key.
MY Experience with Microsoft !
[ For Microsoft Corporation ] Posted August 14th, 2007 by msftie in
Work Culture:
First the good things
* Very casual dress code. You can literally dress up as if you are still in school.
* individual learning is very high since you get to work on cutting edge technology
* Campus is very big, beautiful and nice
*
* Lucrative stock options
* Decent salary package
Now the certain things I am not happy with
* Though MS claims that working hours are pretty flexible but you are expected to work all round the day
* Company is tooooo process oriented
All in all , it is decent company to work for
Salary Benefits:
Salary is not great as the name however other benefits compensates well for the "not so good" pay package.
Job Security:
Its as secure as you can think of
Career Growth:
It depends a lot on the group you are working for.
Overall Comments:
Microsoft is decent company to work for. Its not as good as I used to hear from outside but not bad either.