Pros: Great work-life balance and a chill company.

Cons: Not very competitive in terms of pay.

Pros: - Friendly, empathetic culture - Projects that have tangible real-world impact - Great mentorship from industry experts

Cons: - Bureaucratic culture - Too slow to get the relevant permissions to execute on a project

Pros: I love the healthcare insurance, rideshare, health club, and legal perks, along with other benefits such as reimbursement offered for those really late nights on campus that last beyond public transportation. I have had to take a cab home a couple of times at 2:00 AM and was reimbursed 100%. I also like the speaker series, which are very educational. There are educational reimbursement benefits as well, but overall, they are pretty light at 7K a year, I think, for an approved program at a local university. I'm not sure how far 7K would go at the University of Washington, but it is something.

Cons: The secret society that exists between those who have been at Microsoft the longest. It is a tough clique to crack. There is no clear roadmap to partner, and I honestly do not know of anyone from the outside that makes it from entry level nowadays to partner. There are far too many people in line who have been at Microsoft forever and are waiting for those spots. And the comp model does not promote teamwork. Instead, it promotes hundreds of redundant teams, roles, and products, all competing against each other to the finish line. There is little rationale behind who wins. It is a subjective process that looks objective on paper, but often the paper reviews actually do not match the true work that is delivered. Those who are new to the culture or are from the outside really get taken advantage of by the old-timers. They speak two different languages, and the old-timers expect you to adapt or leave. Sometimes adapting to their ways lacks business ethics. I personally have been asked on more than one occasion to do things like "fudge the numbers, make it up, etc." When I refused to do so diplomatically and carefully, I was then demoted and given a poor performance review, despite winning several awards throughout the year that were an obvious contrast to what was in my review. One of the awards, in fact, was for Engineering Excellence for one of the best projects of the year, awarded by Bill Gates. So it was interesting to receive my fourth award that year and then, on my review, be told that I was in the bottom 10%. Previously to that year, under other managers, I was always in the top 10% and on Steve's "One to Watch List." Yup, there is a list; I'll bet a lot of you softies did not know that. Things like this, though, happen all the time. You hear it everywhere, and things never seem to change. Worse for wear, though, is that if you take something like this to HR, they really have no ability to do anything except for an investigation that can make the individual employee look bad. The repercussions continue against the employee, and HR and the GMs with poor ethics continue on. In the end, I will leave due to the poor business ethics I have seen here, as that is the beginning of the end for Microsoft when at this size and scale they have lost complete control of the employees, senior managers, and HR.