Pros: Great large company to work for with good structure and top benefits. Amazing projects and software to work on. Great culture and smart people.

Cons: Too much management and processes. Very boxed into a role/area/focus. Overlooked if you're not working on something cool. Work-life balance is balanced more towards work. Very competitive.

Pros: There are lots of bright people working at MS. There is so much you can learn from others, and you can generally count on the competence of your co-workers. The benefits are amazing, by far the best I have ever heard of. If you have a family, this is great. The company is stable. Not much chance of it going out of business, leaving you without a job. There is a lot of support for MS in the Redmond area. There are many perks, like the PRIME card given to all employees, which grants you access to huge discounts on many local products and services. You can go anywhere in the world and say you work for Microsoft, and people will know what you are talking about. You get significant time off. Work/life balance is respected. Microsoft does a lot of things. If you want a change, you can always look elsewhere within the company. * Free soda, milk, etc., at work * Individual offices * A huge, beautiful campus * Internal interest groups for just about anything you enjoy doing * A diverse, cosmopolitan workforce * Support for telecommuting, although generally you will lose productivity when doing so

Cons: The company is too large, and there is too much inertia associated with heavyweight processes and legacy maintenance. This makes the company slow to react and change directions. There is a huge amount of competition at MS. The few who shine brightest are rewarded well, but career advancement for the rest is a problem, even though in most other companies they would be stars. Moving within the company involves a tough interview process. While there is grass-roots support for agile processes, management is clinging on to heavyweight processes for dear life. The company as a whole is viewed negatively from the outside. This gets frustrating. Innovation is talked about a lot but rarely seen or actually encouraged. You have to wonder sometimes how certain senior executives have managed to hold on to their jobs after bungling it so many times. The review system inherently rewards individual stars rather than team players. Compensation is fairly average.

Pros: Microsoft is a good company to work for. It offers: * Good benefits, such as good pay, good health benefits, and child care help. * Many groups and products to work on, so there is a breadth of technological space covered. * Very diverse work styles in different teams, some with v1 culture, others much more mature.

Cons: - Smaller pay than other big companies in the field. - Some benefits that others offer, like free food, are not seen. - Some teams have a lot of process to follow, which slows them down.