Microsoft

1. Good benefits for new grads with a 100k+ base, sign-on stock, and yearly bonuses.

2. Fairly simple promotion route (can be promoted every 1.5 years if you're slightly above average), assuming you're in a growing organization. Cloud and Enterprise are hiring and growing, so it's easier to get promoted there than in a well-established organization like Windows or Office.

3. Work-life balance is really up to you. I have seen people come in every day and work less than 40 hours a week and still get promoted (albeit at a slower pace than others).

4. Looks good on the resume, and there won't be a shortage of recruiters reaching out to you.

Microsoft was once the Mecca for Software Engineers. While it's still prestigious, startups and other big companies (Facebook, Google, Amazon) are held in higher esteem.

The company is still trying to become more agile in nature. They've done this by laying off staff and converting all SDETs into Software Engineers. Due to the conversions, some organizations are still figuring out what to do, as they now have people with decades of experience testing code who are expected to compete with other Devs who have decades of experience writing code.

Teams that run web services are slowly starting to release at quicker intervals, but it's still a work in progress.

The culture is different in each org, so be careful of which teams you choose. Middle management is still embroiled in politics. Reorgs are also fairly common, so do not get too attached to one manager.

You will definitely be a small cog in a massive machine if you join Microsoft. You will not have much power to affect the company.

So, if you're looking for high-impact work where you can be agile and heavily dictate the future of the product, then this may not be the company for you.

This company has been stagnant for too long. Reorganizations and job cuts do suck, but the company has needed a change for a long time.