Pros: As long as you have a good manager, you can do wonders in MS. There are opportunities to grow in any discipline.

Cons: Lot of bureaucracy/politics, lack of good managers who can direct, guide, and bring up their people.

Pros: Microsoft is an iconic name that still attracts young professionals. It looks good on a resume. Other companies know if you can manage the work/life balance at this company, then you are no slacker. Pay is good for entry-level, but for industry hires, look elsewhere. Smart people who are experts in what they do.

Cons: I can write many things here: * Highly political company that rewards people that can play the game * Send a bunch of emails --> This shows you are working according to managers * Suck up to your manager --> This is how people are getting promoted * Do less of what is assigned to you and more of useless tools to have "impact" cross teams * Stack ranking system with forced curve * Even if you have a team full of rock star engineers, 1 or 2 will be getting a rating of 4, 5. * This system forces competition among peers rather than collaboration. * Even if you work very hard to improve the feature/quality, you are not rewarded because it's "expected". While someone else can work 9-5 and do a silly script to automate stuff, they are valued. * Far too many program managers * These people don't contribute less than a quarter of what engineers (SDE/SDET) do. * Great talented people that are forced into this role to do data entry. Overall: Microsoft looks very good from the outside; however, it's a contrast when you are inside.

Pros: Great employee benefits, challenging work, and a good location to work. Growing company, lots of users, high impact work. I love my coworkers. It's a product that is changing the world.

Cons: Difficult to get in. Should consider people with good experience who have worked earlier. Not an easy job. Changes impact millions of users, which can sometimes be very stressful.