Microsoft

• Very smart people working alongside of you.

This sounds like a fanboy-type comment, but when I talk with other friends from college and compare some of the stuff they have to deal with at work with coworkers who are unable to write or design any programs, I realize that I never have had to deal with that here.

• Great benefits.

I don't necessarily need all of them since I do not have any children yet, so the healthcare plan doesn't come into account as much as it does for others... but it is great not having to pay anything for doctor, dentist, or pharmacy visits.

• Ability to move around the company with ease.

Lots of products in a wide range of areas keeps me interested and working here for longer than I originally thought I would.

• Products you work on are used by millions of people.

I get a lot of personal (maybe selfish?) satisfaction from seeing my product used by so many people so quickly.

• Flexible hours.

Can work from home if I want, can take a day off if necessary without any issues... so long as I am getting my work done.

• Disparity between teams that make money (Office/Windows) and teams that hemorrhage money (MSN/Zune/etc). It seems like you get rewarded more and promoted more on teams that lose money. Costs are cut in some areas (i.e., I can't get an extra monitor) while other teams don't have that restriction (seriously, first-class travel tickets, top-of-the-line hotels, sending people to conventions that have no bearing on their job but are in Miami or Vegas).

• Too much process for some items causes things to take much longer than necessary. Backwards compatibility, while absolutely necessary, prevents us from reacting to change quick enough.

• Upper-level management seems to have no real set direction.

Cut out a lot of the Principal and Partner level people who are just coasting along and have been for 7-8 years.

They are horrendously overpaid (not all of them, a small percentage of them) and are just sitting back vesting and providing no benefit over the level 59-63 ICs.

Make them earn their paychecks; don't just pay them for what they did 10 years ago.