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Great Infrastructure, Dark Future

Senior Software Development Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Microsoft for less than 1 year
June 12, 2008
Redmond, Washington
3.0
No CEO Opinion
Pros

Industry-wide recognition, first-hand experience with a real software development company, very rich infrastructure, large number of internal discussion groups, very good library, benefits such as a Prime card, nice company meetings, very diversified career opportunities, opportunities to do transfers, ability to reach out to people actually making Windows, officine, etc. Very large R&D, very good medical insurance, extremely competitive mentality.

Cons

Due to an increase in size, the whole company is out of control. Tons of people who were recruited in the last decade are mediocre at best.

The management chain generally consists of non-visionary, average types who just can't compete. The net result is that in 5 years, this company will be stalled if nothing is done. Then, many of the reasons for work will diminish. So, in short, the future is dark.

Another downside is the uncreative, average-to-bad food in the cafeteria.

Advice to Management

Reduce the size. Put a very tight belt in hiring. Let attrition work to shed the bad hires we have collected.

Emphasis on technical skills and resources. In other words, slim down the workforce that is neither part of dev nor test.

Listen to people. They have put themselves on several websites where we can do better in Windows UX and other areas.

In general, deterioration of MS has occurred due to the continuously rising ratio of (people who are neither dev nor test) / (people of dev and test). This ratio means people who make decisions about the product are not very technical and end up messing things every now and then.

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