Microsoft

Anyone passionate about technology can spend their entire career with Microsoft. The company is already involved in so many different areas that it's impossible to get bored.

As a whole, the company is always looking for ways to improve.

They place a high value on customer satisfaction.

Their compensation, while not what it once was, is still very competitive, as is their benefits package.

Politics, pockets of incompetence, and pockets of arrogance.

The hyper-competitive environment leads to some dysfunctional behavior, but this is probably not out-of-line with many other large tech companies.

Weeding out the incompetent and rewarding the rock stars is a critical part of running a tech company. However, it's critical to not overestimate the objectivity of your internal ranking system. Many of the decisions that are made at Microsoft are made with too much faith in that system.