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Not for everyone

Software Engineer II
Former Employee
Worked at Microsoft for less than 1 year
June 15, 2015
Redmond, Washington
4.0
RecommendsNeutral OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros
  • Solid pay.
  • Okay benefits (used to be better) and perks. Little stuff, like cell phone plan discounts or really cheap personal shipping.
  • Work with smart people on cool stuff (depending on team).
  • Potentially broad impact.
Cons
  • Terrible concept of management. (See Advice to Management below.)
  • Obnoxious review system. Supposedly a "meritocracy," but it's invariably a bunch of gossipy political BS. Through three or four different systems, this has been the one constant.
  • Lousy work/life balance. If your only interests are programming and more programming, you'll be fine.
  • At least as hyper-nerdy as you probably imagine. Don't expect many conversations about movies, music, current events, or really anything besides memory allocation or lambda variable capture considerations.
Advice to Management

The role of a manager isn't just to tell their reports what to do. It's to manage, to work with their reports to unblock them and find them opportunities to grow. In the almost seven years I was at Microsoft, I had five or six "managers," but only one real manager. And he was apparently moved into an IC position.

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