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Solid company to work for. Great products, but lacking innovation

Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) II
Current Employee
Has worked at Microsoft for 6 years
December 8, 2013
Redmond, Washington
4.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
Pros

Superb benefits. Very smart people. Access to the best technology. Reasonable salaries. Good for a steady job. Some teams support innovation and agile processes, but not all. There is a lot of freedom in the way you do your work. A lot of focus is there on keeping employees happy, which resulted in the recent overhaul of the review system.

Cons

Some teams have way too much process, which is slow to get to the consumer and slow to innovate because of ancient release methodologies.

There is a lot of unnecessary re-organization because of changes to upper management, which causes flux to teams that are doing good work.

There isn't a cohesive strategy within bigger teams because multiple senior-level people want to assert their ideas, which causes teams to get pulled in different directions over time.

With the latest One Microsoft strategy, this is getting reduced, but we aren't there yet.

Advice to Management

Find a long-term goal that aligns with the rest of the company. Stick to it. Find new ways to innovate so we retain market share.

Share tools and strategies across teams to move ahead faster.

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