Microsoft

There are lots of bright people working at MS. There is so much you can learn from others, and you can generally count on the competence of your co-workers.

The benefits are amazing, by far the best I have ever heard of. If you have a family, this is great.

The company is stable. Not much chance of it going out of business, leaving you without a job.

There is a lot of support for MS in the Redmond area.

There are many perks, like the PRIME card given to all employees, which grants you access to huge discounts on many local products and services.

You can go anywhere in the world and say you work for Microsoft, and people will know what you are talking about.

You get significant time off.

Work/life balance is respected.

Microsoft does a lot of things. If you want a change, you can always look elsewhere within the company.

• Free soda, milk, etc., at work
• Individual offices
• A huge, beautiful campus
• Internal interest groups for just about anything you enjoy doing
• A diverse, cosmopolitan workforce
• Support for telecommuting, although generally you will lose productivity when doing so

The company is too large, and there is too much inertia associated with heavyweight processes and legacy maintenance. This makes the company slow to react and change directions.

There is a huge amount of competition at MS. The few who shine brightest are rewarded well, but career advancement for the rest is a problem, even though in most other companies they would be stars.

Moving within the company involves a tough interview process.

While there is grass-roots support for agile processes, management is clinging on to heavyweight processes for dear life.

The company as a whole is viewed negatively from the outside. This gets frustrating.

Innovation is talked about a lot but rarely seen or actually encouraged.

You have to wonder sometimes how certain senior executives have managed to hold on to their jobs after bungling it so many times.

The review system inherently rewards individual stars rather than team players.

Compensation is fairly average.

• Create smaller, more autonomous groups.
• Create products that are not branded with "Microsoft," "Windows," or "Live." Those brands are now viewed negatively and actually hurt great products.
• Great individual contributors (developers, testers, program managers, etc.) don't necessarily make great managers. Promote those who have good management potential to management positions, not those who are great individual contributors.
• Adopt agile practices more widely.
• Give people room to grow.
• Make more bets on the innovative instead of on the safe.
• Productize more of the great ideas coming out of MS Research, even if the product ends up being given away.
• Stop trying to do too many things and focus on getting a few done right.