Come join us - And spoil your career - Senior Program Manager Microsoft Employee Review

1.0
Sep 11, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1: If you are laid back person and don't have any career ambitions in terms of growth, working on latest technology etc. then this is the place for you to work. 2: There is no vision in this group so you will not be asked to do any challenging task :). 3: Though working for this group does not add any value to your skills but you will still get the Microsoft tag in your back. 4: Life is cool as there is hardly any work :) 5: You get good benefits i.e. medical insurance etc.

Cons

1: You will work with most in-competent management. 2: You will not be promoted or get a good raise unless you know someone in the group. So basically there is nothing called "fair review". 3: Product group or all other groups always treat you as a second class citizen so basically "no respect". When I using word "no respect" means no respect. 4: After working couple of years in GFS, your resume will not be entertained in other groups within Microsoft as you will be marked as "In-Competent". So you will see people here who spent their entire life i.e. 8-10 years. It does not mean that they love the group or have vital knowledge about the system but it means that they know very well that if they moved out of the group, they will be on the road.

Explore other reviews about Microsoft

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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