Microsoft

1. Working with great, intelligent, happy people who can also socialize. This is a difficult trait to get from great engineers; most engineers these days are too introverted.

2. Benefits are fantastic. If you have a family, then Microsoft is the boom! As a single person, I still benefited immensely by their StayFit program. Microsoft paid 80% of a $7,000 bill to get me slim and trim.

3. Most managers respect you and listen to you.

4. It is easy to find great, talented, and professionally experienced mentors.

5. Moving about the company... let me rephrase that... technical breadth and depth are strongly encouraged. If Microsoft went from writing software to being a library or a hospital, its employees would get right to it and thrive.

6. Great, strong collaboration between all the engineering disciplines.

7. World-wide talent. Microsoft goes to great lengths to recruit around the world and lobby directly with Congress to have certain immigration/visa limitations overruled.

8. Excellent resources for professional development. Books, e-books, databases, on-site and online classes.

9. There is a group/alias for anything you can imagine: singing, theatre, biking, knitting... you name it. It is easy to get connected.

10. MOST IMPORTANTLY, Microsoft is probably THE most open and accepting company in the WORLD for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender employees and their spouses. I know exactly the reason this is, but I'm not going to "out" any of the Senior Managers in this review.

1. Well, BillG is gone. I'm still waiting to see if the new successors at the helm can be successful and drive the company forward. Google, here we come!

2. Testers and PMs are more often viewed as the dentist in the room full of doctors. Devs need to be more supportive and sympathetic to their testers.

3. In a company of over 65,000 employees, it is very easy to feel unimportant or lost. But as long as you do your best and get promoted in your organization every year, then things will be great.

4. There seems to be a bias between certain teams when it comes to salary and promotion. For example, two new college hires started the same month, at Windows Live and Office teams respectively. Each was at the same initial level with the same salary. After 3 years, the one in Office may have a greater salary and employment level than the one in Windows Live. Well, you may say the "successful" one is more capable, but astonishingly it has more to do with opportunity within the group you're hired into. The grass always looks greener from one team to another. The company, however, is making great strides to normalize the ranking and promotion criteria by setting certain career level competencies and a career model that is in use throughout the company.

I think they're doing a great job!