Microsoft

The benefits package is great, especially if you have a special needs kid. The pay is very comparable to other companies, and if you have been around for a few years in a higher level above L63, your annual stock grant chunks and bonus add nicely to your base pay. You work on something, and you have all the latest and greatest tools at your fingertips with a tremendous amount of bright people around you. The campus is a fun place to work, especially in the new buildings, and the sports fields are a nice touch.

Over the years, work-life balance has gotten much, much better. Changing to "Career Stage Profiles" for how you track your career growth through different disciplines is still controversial, but much better than some old Word doc called a "ladder level guide" that was obscure and prone to interpretation issues. This new way helps new employees have a baseline with examples of technical, customer connection, soft skills, and teamwork, and other categories for what is expected.

Free drinks do not make a job "better", but from what I remember, they were a trend-setting practice that started a long time ago. Many dot-coms also did this and bested it with free food to boot. We still have full fridges on each floor; nice to have, and you really take it for granted if you have been around for a while.

Mentors are everywhere, and we have a formal mentor program that has worked well for me and many others that I know. Regardless of your tenure or experience, I think many benefit from the ability to pick a mentor and get unbiased advice as an ear to listen to your questions.

Most hiring managers and recruiters pitch, "It's very easy to move around within Microsoft if you want a new challenge."

Well, the reality is if you are even halfway decent, have been on a team for a bit, and are adding solid value, chances are you will face resistance when you try to leave.

Or, better yet, like it has happened to thousands of employees, you might actually get "blocked" from interviewing in another team.

It has gotten better, though, as you don't get blocked much anymore. They finally put accountability on managers to stop this horrible tactic. Now, a VP has to approve a "block," so the manager has to explain why you are so valuable and non-replaceable that they can't let you go.

The "old boys club" is alive and kicking.

Too many old folks who don't like change have been around for 20+ years, nurturing the old-school management philosophies of the 80's that don't work as well in 2009. Many should be gone and retired by now, as they can, but they stick around and make silly decisions.

Also, tons of incubation teams are working on pet VP projects, in the red for 3+ years. The company and Ballmer need to start trimming these (these are different than what the research does) and start being more fiscally responsible, as economic conditions will dictate.

L67 or higher and you are a bad manager? You get crappy manager feedback, and an HR generalist might get involved to collect feedback from a collective disgruntled team of folks who report to them. That person is now in a different part of the company, off to be a crappy manager to another set of folks.

Also, the company is very, very good at taking very smart folks in Engineering and making them now a mediocre engineer who is a sucky manager and leader, has poor soft and interpersonal skills. No matter how much "training" they go through, they just don't have it in them to be good at understanding what it takes to be accountable for the work of others who now work for you and needing to lead them. ACCOUNTABILITY STINKS all over the place with our Sr Mgmt. The biggest problem I see is this "A" word.

Partner level folks? This topic is very touchy, given their astronomical pay over the other 99% of the folks (average pay around $500K with SPSA stock grants and bonus) and the value add they have other than being around for a long time.

My recommendation is that Senior Mgmt should explain to all employees what it means to be a "Partner" and the criteria for how these folks attain this level band and, more importantly, the review system for them. As right now, they have a bad rap (I'm sure the folks who are actually at this level are not complaining).

I'm not sold that Ballmer is 100% at fault for everything that goes on in the company. In most places, you put in place leaders and trust them to tell you what is going on.

We have two sides of the execs in the company. Many worked in Sales/Marketing jobs, and just as many, if not more, rose up through dev mgr and GPM roles. But you see a lot of people want him to take action and fix problems sooner.

The part that makes me very angry are the comments year after year he makes about the stock price doesn't matter.

Our top SVPs and their staff have their hands full, as many other companies do:

• Keeping people motivated and productive
• Managing out underperformers
• Doing whatever it takes to keep your best and brightest and up-and-coming leaders producing and growing.

Thank you.