Microsoft

Interesting projects; cutting-edge technologies; smart people; lots of opportunities to learn something new; lots of opportunities to impact millions of customers.

Unhealthy culture. Internal competitiveness is killing innovation and driving away great people. There are too many incapable, hard-to-work-with people in high places. Too much red tape, especially when it comes to re-staffing appropriately after team assignments change drastically.

First and second-level managers make 90% of the project decisions. However, first-level managers are being pushed to become more like Individual Contributors (ICs) with barely any management skills and no time or training to develop vision, research competing technologies, or even understand the customers or market.

The second-level managers are too far removed from the technology, so most of their decisions end up coming across as distractions and bad decisions to the teams they lead.

Microsoft needs to invest in making its Leads (M1s) and Managers (M2s) into real managers and leaders, not figureheads proving their leadership by competing with the ICs instead of enabling them to become the best subject-matter-experts in the field.