Being #1 is a blessing and a curse - Technical Account Manager Microsoft Employee Review

3.0
Sep 19, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay and bonus is above average. Medical benefits are outstanding. If you're willing to relocate or travel more than 50% of the time you have greater opportunities than most to advance. There is a certain amount of opportunity that you can control locally but after that it is right place right time. You really can control your own destiny by digging in and going the extra mile and you can be rewarded for it (there is some downside to that which I'll outline below). Having dedicated customer contact and / or responsibility insulates you (mostly) from corporate restructuring - the company is sensitive to forcing a level of change that might cause service level drops or continuity issues with customer facing roles.

Cons

Raises are not the best. While you start off higher than two thirds of comparable jobs the raises that are not accompanied with promotions are less than 4% with most being in the 2 to 3% range. If you miss a single commitment even by a hair that raise could be 0%. You have to be willing to relocate or travel more than 50% of the time to have greater opportunities than most to advance. If you do dig in and go the extra mile you'll most likely be rewarded for it especially if it positively impacts the business unit as a whole but you'll have raised the bar for yourself and your peers - they'll be expected to do as much (or more) and so will you from that point forward. If you worked at a marathon-like pace you'll never be able to sustain that from year to year. You'll burn yourself out trying and ultimately alienate yourself from your peers.

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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