Microsoft

Good pay and nice location.

My internship at Microsoft was a terrible experience. My manager, mentor, and skip-level did not care about me or support me. From the very beginning, everything felt disorganized and directionless.

The culture is extremely team-dependent, which makes the experience feel like a gamble, and unfortunately I ended up on a team with poor culture, no sense of inclusion, and no guidance.

I never felt welcome throughout the internship, and the lack of support or structure made it hard to succeed or even feel like I belonged. In hindsight, I would have taken another company’s offer without hesitation. The program feels like it has gone downhill, and I cannot recommend interning here.

Be intentional about where interns are placed. Managers should genuinely want to host interns, not just take them on as a box to check. My manager was not only unsupportive, but actively harsh, unfair, and dismissive. He created an environment where I felt constantly undermined, unvalued, and set up to fail. No matter how much effort I put in, it was clear I would never receive fair feedback, recognition, or even basic respect. That kind of management makes the internship toxic and demoralizing.

If Microsoft wants interns to succeed, managers need to understand what it means to mentor—investing time, patience, and fairness—and they should be held accountable when they fail to do so. Interns deserve constructive guidance, not negativity and indifference. Just as importantly, place interns on teams with clear business needs and meaningful projects, not groups that might be cut or deprioritized. Otherwise, interns are left gambling with their careers and well-being.