Microsoft

You are surrounded by incredibly intelligent, passionate people.

The benefits were excellent, and I was paid very well.

The experience has looked great on a resume.

The politics now are just awful. Too many middle managers care more about themselves and carving out their slivers of power than they do about doing the right thing for their employees, their customers, or the company as a whole.

The review model makes it a highly competitive work environment. You always need to watch your back because your co-workers will try to screw you over to get ahead of you in the stack ranking.

People are afraid of change at the company, so innovation is dead in a lot of groups. The best way to succeed in those groups is to toe the party line instead of innovate. In those groups, if you are a dynamic thinker who looks for ways to improve the team, you will be miserable.

Loosen up on the stack ranking model.

Don't have a required percentage for the bottom review bucket (currently a 5), and only put people who deserve to be there.

Upper management should focus more on the activities of the GMs and PUMs and make sure they are doing right by their customers. Managers who spend more time fighting for position and screwing over fellow managers should be removed from their positions.

Also, more training is needed to develop better managers. Too many leads and M2s are just terrible at their jobs and don't have the support to grow.