Microsoft

There are truly brilliant people at Microsoft, and lots of passion in the air.

Review system politics. You survived the 99% cutoff rate of interviews and racked up lots of experience, shipped some products, patented ideas, added innovative features, saved the day, etc. But now you're in a rough patch at work and find yourself in the bottom 10-20% of the review pool due to "metrics" and personality issues, and you are headed for eviction.

Perhaps you'd like the opportunity to interview with another team? You'd better interview with Google or Apple, because your internal record won't allow you to stay at Microsoft. And once you get one bad review, you bet you won't pull yourself out of the hole.

The concept of a career at Microsoft only works if people who get caught in the system have new opportunities to change jobs when they are unhappy with their team, without leaving the company. Microsoft has trained many a college grad to be an engineer for other companies.