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: Company store, which you probably won't use for yourself, but your friends and relatives would love to take this advantage. Only if you have a charismatic leader should you go there.

Cons: It was an awesome place to work before ~2010. The company is struggling now due to competition, economy, and poor upper management leadership. You may never make a good career there. If your team had 20 members and all were Nobel Prize geniuses, they would all get "average" on their yearly calibration/review and never get a promotion. To be "strong," you need to prove that you over-performed others. Stack options are insulting. Medical benefits were awesome before 2012. Now, if you have a family, you have to pay $6500 before insurance starts covering 100%. If you want to ruin your career, join MS, work 20 years, and get laid off at almost the same level as you started. Sick company. Big layoffs, reforms, and reorganizations are upfront, otherwise, it won't survive.

Pros: It is a famous company. Microsoft's name on your resume will open many doors for you. There are still a lot of smart people here. The pay is OK for me. I may get a little bit more in other big tech companies in the area; however, it is just not worth the hassle to change jobs.

Cons: There is a lot of red tape to get the job done. There are many layers of management at Microsoft. The company does not move as fast compared to other leading tech companies. We lost many good engineers to Google.