Microsoft

Bleeding-edge technology. If you happen to land in the right spot, it's really fun to work on a new API or library that other developers will use.

Health care coverage – up through 2013. After that, it's going to be much more expensive.

I started working at MSFT at the end of the "gold rush" – mid-'90s. At that time, if you worked there for, say, 7 to 10 years, you were rich and retiring – gone to the French Riviera or someplace. With MSFT stock still less than 50% of what it was 11 years ago, everyone now must work longer – years longer.

The company thrives on new college hires. Fresh, bright, eager, talented 20-somethings from the top CS programs in the world. They come in ready to continue a 60- to 80-hour work week that's much like the quarter system at the university. Lots of papers, projects, mid-terms, and finals. Here, they are called milestones. Finals are called reviews. As long as you can maintain this continual "grad school death march," you are fine. Once you've put on a few years and pass 40 years old, this pace starts to take a toll on you. In fact, you don't really see too many employees here past the age of 40. You rarely see a person over 50.

There's a ladder system of levels and an upward slope. As long as you can maintain a good pace and advance climbing the ladder at a reasonable speed, you're fine. There comes a time when you pass 40 years old that you reach your personal maximum level. The company career process is not equipped to deal with that. If you "level out" on your climb and it looks like you won't reach the next rung on the ladder, then you start being treated like dead wood. There's no place for a journeyman engineer at MSFT. They only respect and understand the early stages of an employee's life, from 20-something to retirement age. This company is not a safe place to work for older employees.

The first word in "Human Resources" is human. These are people with lives, families, and responsibilities. Everyone has different styles of learning and working. A team takes some time to gel, and for all the people to get to know each other and fall into a groove, somewhere on the order of a year. Constant reorgs means teams are always unsettled and never quite coming together. Get a clue.