Microsoft reviews

Pathetic work culture, bad work life balance, you work as a labor just following the manager's orders. All the decision making over the projects is done by the management without much involvement from the engineering ICs who are just handed over the tasks to be completed. There is lack of transparency between management and the ICs. You don't grow as a person but only as a resource. Much of the soft skills you gain is NOT over managing projects, collaboration, innovation or leadership skills, BUT over pushing your work to someone else, negotiating on timelines and the amount of work. This type of work culture is simply not acceptable from a large and reputed organization like Microsoft.

Managers in most cases treat employees like dirt and as completely expendable. They're fast becoming an Oracle sales mentality. One person at a very high level has completely changed the atmosphere, and the way the stack ranking now runs is worse than the Vanity Fair article described. It's a dog eat dog environment, where how good you are, and how much you contribute has little to nothing to do with your chances of success, and how much you suck up to managers in your district, or how much "visibility" you have is the only measure of success. The fact that the hiring manager for the last job I had there over 9 years told me first and foremost 'lets figure out how to get you enough visibility so that I can defend you in the stack ranking' instead of discussing what I should be doing in my job says it all. This appears to be pretty much endemic at MS now, and every week I hear of yet another awesome employee leaving or being forced out. However, the Mid-Atlantic States District is particularly bad, with politics that I have never seen in my 20 years in IT and sales. MS also treats partners terribly. Partner CSAT scores are gamed. The level of frustration in the partner community has never been higher. Partners depend on MS for a lot of revenue, but most hate MS because of the way they are treated.