Pros: Good pay, good benefits. People you'll work with are generally smart and qualified. The work is typically challenging. You can expect that your immediate boss can do your job better than you can. Some departments, like server, are very diverse, with tons of people from all over the world. Pretty short on African Americans, like every other tech company. Not a woman, so I can't comment directly, but based on my observations and conversations with women devs, "brogrammer" culture is not tolerated. Company is currently in the midst of overhauling its engineering processes. That may net out to a plus or it may not.

Cons: The company is struggling to regain a position of leadership in a number of areas. They just laid off a bunch of really good people because the Board wanted to jump the stock price. The old review model completely sucked. They've tried to address this, but the jury is still out. The management hierarchy is too steep with too many personal fiefdoms. They are trying to flatten it, but the jury is still out. The long-term future of the company remains doubtful.

Pros: After spending nine years of my career at Microsoft, I can say without doubt that the one thing that's kept me here is people. Building products and solving problems for a billion people attracts some of the brightest minds. It can be intimidating, but is almost always also exciting. Creativity and innovation are always encouraged and rewarded. Role boundaries are as flexible as you want them to be. I work with rock-star devs who live and breathe hyper-scale code, whereas I often operate in the fuzz between full-stack engineering, program management, and marketing. Benefits are pretty good, once you get past the unnecessary complexity of the way they are structured. Management knows things are different now. This is not the same Microsoft as two years ago. You can almost smell the change in the campus air. Speaking of smells, management's finally listening, and the cafeteria food has been excellent lately.

Cons: An excellent engineer doesn't necessarily make a good manager. This is a lesson that has eluded Microsoft for decades. I've seen many "rock stars" in the making walk out because of used-to-be-engineer managers who haven't quite been able to let go. That said, there are plenty of excellent managers here. When you find one, stick with her/him.

Pros: Smart people, flexible hours, great benefits.

Cons: Potential long hours, processes, and politics.