Microsoft

Great work-life balance.

Challenging problems to tackle.

Work with products at scale.

Technical debt and legacy systems. But hey, this should be expected when working at such a big company.

Working with time-zone differences can sometimes impact productivity.

As a contractor, you really get the short end of the stick in regards to pay.

My biggest critique is that the high usage of contractors greatly impacts the shared knowledge within any team. With workers constantly coming in and out, there can be areas of knowledge that have to be constantly re-learned. This causes great inefficiencies and delays when fixing or improving applications.

In my opinion, retaining more permanent employees and decreasing turnover can save a lot of money by reducing constant on-boarding and re-learning of lost knowledge.