Pros: Every org at Microsoft is different, so this is specifically for Lync (Skype for Business). * A lot of smart, talented, and experienced engineers from whom I learned a lot. * In general, managers had been promoted from within the org and were very knowledgeable and passionate about the product. * Got to work on very interesting, deep challenges and learned a lot about how to make large, scalable services serving millions of users. * For the most part, there weren't too many tight deadlines or pressure to work an exorbitant number of hours. * A good amount of freedom. Teams were generally left to make a lot of their own technical decisions without much micromanaging from upper management. At least for my team, the leads were always up for a discussion on the best way to do things. * Catered breakfast! Everyday!

Cons: - Difficult to ramp up in the beginning. Tons of different services, endless internal acronyms and code names, not much documentation (or no one remembered where the documentation was, or it hadn't been updated in 5 years). A lot of people had been there for years, so they didn't understand what it's like to be new. - Some managers (unfortunately mine) clearly got to their positions because of their ability to play politics rather than technical skill or leadership ability (or intelligence), and the engineers under them suffer because of it. - A lot of process and overhead that doesn't always make much sense and slows things down. - Dependent on internal tools and infrastructure that can be unreliable and difficult to find documentation on.

Pros: Visa issuance, cool benefits, relaxed people, get familiar with the latest MS products, and valuable trainings.

Cons: Too much politics; not really much time focused on engineering. Not too many days off. Projects and team are reorganized very often.

Pros: Lots of smart people. You can learn a lot and gain deep technical expertise.

Cons: It feels a bit slow when releasing products compared to competitors, but things are changing.