Pros: You must find opportunities to learn from others, and you have the most impact to drive your own career. Nothing comes to you automatically. This is a place where people who take initiative can thrive. People around you are very smart and ambitious. Employees can learn a lot from the right mentor.

Cons: Your experience, performance, and opportunities are heavily determined by your direct manager's support and, indirectly, your skip-level manager. Regardless of whether you do good work or bad, the process is highly political. If you have a bad relationship with your manager, even if it isn't "your fault," you're set up for failure. It is, unfortunately, a prerequisite that you manage this relationship first before your actual work performance, because little else matters if your manager does not go up to bat for you. For me, I was lucky to have supportive direct managers. For many of my peers, however, I've seen very poor managers, and there is little the system can do to protect employees from bad managers. It's a crap shoot at times.

Pros: Great growth opportunities, the greatest software company overall, great pay and benefits, great choice of things to do at work, working on world-class software, working from home is not a problem, flexible hours have a positive meaning. Even if you decide to leave the company, this is great for your resume. You learn a lot at Microsoft with the challenges of satisfying millions, if not billions, of users with your work every day. You work with some of the greatest engineers in the world, with people who are smart and friendly. Then there are free drinks, Starbucks, and pizza almost every day, sports club membership, and many social events!

Cons: Working far from home is a must if you were not born in Seattle and want to develop the biggest products. Many customers do not like Microsoft, so you have to explain to people you are not working for an Evil Empire. It rains a lot in Redmond too! Advancing your career might be slower than in startups because of great competition, but it is almost guaranteed, as opposed to startups, which often fail. Sometimes it is easy to get lost in such a big place. Sometimes you might feel like a little cogwheel in a huge machine, although everyone is important and you can always try to grow and become a big one too!

Pros: Health benefits, various perks here and there. Excellent job security, especially compared to other companies in the same industry. Very flexible work hours; you don't actually have to work very hard if you don't really want to get back much. Generally speaking, you are surrounded with intelligent people, which is not necessarily true at other companies. If you want to, it's possible to learn and grow well, at the lower levels at any rate (entry level to minorly senior levels).

Cons: My guess is the downsides are similar to working at many other large corporate companies. Slow processes, a very slow climb up the career ladder generally speaking. Pay also grows in a generally slow and steady manner; don't expect sudden jumps in pay and level as is possible in smaller environments. Bureaucracy and processes abound, as well as politics, as close as even 1 or 2 levels away from entry-level. Generally speaking, Microsoft isn't the best place to be if you want to be a superstar, quickly advance in your career, or just plain have a lot of energy. Not if you want to get well-rewarded at any rate.