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      Microsoft

      Engaged Employer

      Microsoft Principal Software Development Engineer reviews

      3.8

      72% would recommend to a friend

      (408 total reviews)
      avatar

      Satya Nadella

      80% approve of CEO

      70% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      4.1

      Diversity & inclusion

      3.7

      Culture & values

      3.7

      Work/Life balance

      3.7

      Career opportunities

      3.5

      Compensation and benefits

      3.2

      Senior management

      Principal Software Development Engineer employees have rated Microsoft with 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 408 company reviews on Glassdoor. This indicates that most Principal Software Development Engineer professionals have a good working experience there. Microsoft is rated in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) by Principal Software Development Engineer professionals compared to other employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Reviews by job title

      408 reviews
      1.0
      Sep 11, 2009

      A great place to start career, but no career path for software engineers.

      Principal software development engineer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Great facility to work in; fabulous benefits, especially Pro Sports Club; working with extremely smart and motivated co-workers; an interesting mix of products to work on; a flexible work schedule.

      Cons

      Stack ranking reviews means that even if there are 10 super-star performers on a team, one of them gets an "U10" (under performed rating); the cut-throat politics to stay out of the U10 status means ZERO team collaboration; senior leadership that is more interested in their bonuses than product development.

      3.0
      Sep 11, 2008

      Time to s**t or get off the pot

      Principal software development engineer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Scope - MS has the biggest scope of opportunity for a talented software engineer, tired of working in networking, try security, or games, or windows, or office, or robotics, or research. There aren't many serious industry players that can offer that. Location - The pacific northwest is a great place to work Attitude - When applied correctly (and they sometimes are!) the company's values make it a great place to work. I'm not really talking about the free soda or health care, more the open environment that can allow smart people to really work together and produce. Scale - maybe this is just scope in a different light, but the company is big enough and diverse enough that I can see other teams doing very varied work

      Cons

      Talks down to its staff - amazing, MS has (or thinks that it has) an effective recruitment and interview process, which is meant to bring in smart employees, and in my experience does, then having recruited all these "smart" employees the company in any and all official communication with them talks down to them like they are idiots. Grrr.

      Viewing 403 - 405 of 408 Reviews
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      Glassdoor has 68,599 Microsoft reviews submitted anonymously by Microsoft employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Microsoft is right for you.