Microsoft

There are tons of opportunities at Microsoft if you're focused on your day-to-day work, like:

• Studying different programming languages or new tech on dozens of trainings which are offered regularly.
• Non-tech trainings (like Psy, PM, or Agile) - it's hard to find such things outside.
• Selecting the team to transfer to on the internal hiring site (with lots of filters by place, level, keywords, ...).

Besides, Microsoft offers great salaries, which are hardly matched by startups or other companies.

It's a seat-keeping culture. Meaning that people are "working" there to keep the good salary/benefits forever, and not to deliver a good product or some value for the company. That may make you very angry if you're a delivery-oriented, fast-paced developer. But there's no point in arguing or "escalating." Because you'll most likely escalate the issue to somebody who's also "keeping the seat," and they will most likely get rid of you rather than break their nice and safe environment.

If you're outside the Redmond campus, it's hard to find somebody from an interesting team with whom you can talk face-to-face, because almost everything about development is in Redmond. Outside are mostly only Sales, Evangelists, and minor development, which flows into Redmond slowly anyway.

No advice. Really. Just sit on your seats as long as possible and don't change anything, especially your workplace. Stay all in one place, so that those companies who are really delivery-oriented will not be infected by you.