Reflections after 10 years - Supportability Program Manager Microsoft Employee Review

5.0
Oct 24, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you want to always work on the cutting edge technologies, then Microsoft is a great place to work. You'll always be surrounded by incredibly smart people who are passionate about their work. Microsoft is a place where your opinion matters and where your ideas will be given merit. The work life balance is great. Flexible work hours and the ability to work from home depending upon role obviously, is fantastic. The benefits are still outstanding when compared to other Fortune 500 companies. But they are not what they used to be, even from a couple of years ago. The culture has also suffered a bit over time. But in today's PC world that is to be expected I guess. Overall I would highly recommend Microsoft to anyone. It is today and will continue to be one of the leading tech companies globally. And working for that kind of company is exciting and very rewarding.

Cons

The stack rank system used to determine where employees fit in to the overall work force is flawed at best, and leaves a lot to be desired at the least. A quick Bing search will tell you all that you need to know about this system from both current and former employees. The higher that you progress in your career, it is sometimes that much harder to get noticed. One reason for this is that at Microsoft, the bar to just get a job here is so high, that you are competing with the best of the best for opportunities, and advancement. See stack rank above.

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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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