The deal is no longer worth it - Senior UX Researcher Microsoft Employee Review

2.0
Oct 28, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

To be honest, I don't have a lot of positives here - see below

Cons

Over 8 years at Microsoft, I was happy to accept that the unstated deal is that MS employees get slower career progression and lower pay than they would at equivalent positions elsewhere, in exchange for a more stable work environment - less risk of layoffs, etc. That deal is out the window at this point - the layoff risk is now as high as anywhere else, but career progression and salary haven't risen to match. The culture has deteriorated as large layoffs have become an ongoing problem, in part because the layoffs frequently feel short-sighted: eg, half of my team was RIF'd in July - including almost everyone who actively wanted to work in the office - shortly before the RTO directive came through. So now they no longer have people who want to work in the office, and instead they're forcing all the people who preferred remote work to start coming in again - many of whom are already looking at exit strategies. I'd really only recommend a position at Microsoft if you have a short- or medium-term plan to boomerang back out, or if you're looking to get a foot in the door at a big tech or games company.

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5.0
Jul 23, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pretty good pay and unlimited PTO

Cons

Increasingly deadline driven to a fault

4.0
Jan 28, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. If you love tech, this is a great place. No doubt you'll talk tech (mostly the MSFT stack) from enterprise to consumer - from PCs to phones to Xboxes - from datacenter to desktop. 2. What were GREAT benefits are now VERY GOOD (took a small step down) but still probably better than you'll find at 99% of large corporations. If you've got family - the value of the benefits is even higher. 401k match is nice. 3. Even with it's struggles MSFT is still a cash printing machine. This means if you can keep your nose clean and do reasonable work, you can have a stable job, pay your bills, feed your family, and not worry (too much) about layoffs. The stock you own likely won't tank, but probably won't go up much either. You'll get a bonus each year and some stock. It's a decent life if you aren't looking to light the world on fire.

Cons

Brand on Your Resume: After many years of losing market share and struggling to be at the front end of innovation and the fact that there's 90,000 employees, don't think MSFT is necessarily going to be attractive on your resume to more agile and smaller companies. Managing Your Career: Make you say this out loud so it registers - 90,000 employees work there. Double that for vendors. It is VERY hard to "stand out" and move up in the company. Don't expect your manager to be much of an advocate or enabler to help you meet your career goals - they are basically trying to survive the stack rank every year too. Not familiar with the stack rank? Check out the 2012 Vanity Fair article called "Microsoft's Lost Decade".

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