Pros: Microsoft, as a company, has a lot of respect for its employees. Microsoft invests long-term in a problem space and aggressively pursues its competitors, often winning by constantly pushing forward and surpassing the competition when the competition starts to make mistakes.

Cons: The political nature of a large juggernaut like Microsoft can lead to high levels of frustration for someone used to working on small teams and pivoting quickly. The business is set to compete long term and is not particularly innovative. Lots of innovation happens at Microsoft, but Microsoft is rarely the first to productize that innovation.

Pros: Good tech, broad business, smart people.

Cons: Low pay, much office politics.

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.