Microsoft

Stable, secure work (at least in some teams, it looks like). Well-being improved since I started and generally, I think it was quite good (depending on project and on-calls). Learning is supported by having workshops or some days assigned for learning, but it depends on how much leftover work you have in the sprint. Hackathon events are fun. Some teams actually look like they do good and interesting work.

• Very political; it affects everything from project work to individual promotions and seems to cripple quality across organizations within MS.

• Internal tools and processes related to anything technical are quite bad and ambiguous, with poor documentation, resulting in many teams reinventing the wheel.

• Some situations, in my opinion, were handled in a shady way instead of being more transparent.

• The quality of PMs within the organization is very imbalanced. Some seem to do a great job, but most are bringing very little added value.

• Salaries are still good compared to most Prague companies, but stagnating compared to inflation and other companies becoming the top payers.

• MS heavily under-levels people they hire. Many smart people were two levels below their competence, and also, don't forget to negotiate salary hard and ask for a signing bonus.

Tune down the politics, focus on cooperation over competition, and prefer quality over something which just looks nice.