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Good tools, disrespectful/competitive coworkers

Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Microsoft for 2 years
May 6, 2022
Redmond, Washington
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

In my opinion, this company has great development tools. For example, Azure DevOps, which bundles most, if not all, of the typical dev flow, CI/CD, and artifact repos in one tool.

Offices are bright and have good ergonomic setups, including the desk, chair, and PC equipment.

Cons

Instead of having dedicated SREs/DevOps teams, MSFT engineers tend to have to do on-call rotations themselves.

This is painful because we have teams and outages on the other side of the world, right when you're trying to sleep.

I've been woken up countless times for petty issues.

Lower pay than FAANG/MANGA.

Slow career progression. It's more about years of experience than actual contributions. It's much easier to get a promotion by switching companies, and I imagine the pay increase at that new company would be much better than what MSFT gives you.

High-stress. I quit halfway through 2021 and I am still recovering from burnout from a gaslighting, rude manager.

Most of the people I worked with were disrespectful, petty, and standoffish. This is common across MSFT, even though I have seen a lot of feedback here saying MSFT is a wonderful place to work.

The meme picture of Microsoft's org chart, where different teams are aiming pistols at each other, is painfully accurate.

It is true that change has happened under Satya Nadella's leadership, but MSFT still lives under a rock compared to other companies today. I don't ever see this changing.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
2.0
Culture and Values
1.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
1.0
Career Opportunities
2.0
Compensation and Benefits
3.0
Senior Management
1.0

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