Pros: - Working with smart people. - Fun events on campus. - Capable hardware. - Own office.

Cons: - Luck of the draw with managers. I unfortunately have an inexperienced manager who changes expectations of me on a weekly basis. Some expectations are way off the mark, more in line with one who has been at the company for several years. - Lots of internal tools with no documentation. - No formal training to get up to speed. Expected to just learn things on the fly. This would be fine if things were documented better. Onboarding process varies with teams.

Pros: The technical people here are exceptional. I've worked with leaders and pioneers in my field much earlier in my career than I could have hoped to. I also like the breadth of products that Microsoft builds, so the freedom to move from product to product as my career grows is valuable to me. My coworkers across the company are also a great resource. I've learned a lot about several Microsoft products in great depth thanks to help from my coworkers. The perks are also great: * Free health care * A great gym membership * Lots of paid time off * And of course living in the Pacific Northwest.

Cons: The work-life balance is totally random. Some weeks/months I'll be able to do whatever I want, but some months I'll work 80+ hour weeks a few weeks in a row. Management attempts to fix this, but I've seen the pattern of poor planning saved by last-minute heroics a few times now. We also have a tendency to get out of touch with reality. Not everyone in the real world has a quad-core computer with 8GB of RAM and fast internet at home, but we get lulled into making that assumption because everyone we know here has all that stuff.

Pros: Smart people around you; good reputation; you see the impact of your work outside the workplace (products); your friends will praise you. The best benefits package I have ever seen. There are some problems with the way the dental plan is handled by the local dentists (see below).

Cons: Stress on a regular basis; pressure; competition can lead to some sort of mixed feelings about your peers. One big thing: dentists in the Seattle area will do everything they can to take all the money from the insurance company. At Microsoft, they give you a limit of $1500 per year for dental treatment. However, if you need, for instance, a canal for a tooth, dentists here will charge you... well, guess what? $1500! That means, for a simple canal, they will eat up all insurance money at your first visit. Then, if you need to do something else (say, a crown for that canal?), you have to pay for it yourself, and it's a rip-off. So, the dentists here are literally thieves! Dental insurance should be unlimited, just like medical insurance.