Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

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I just discovered this site. Now I know how much you Microsofties really make!
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Are these numbers for SF (as the page suggests)? Either they are, or there is quite a bit of variation in Seattle salary levels. Disclaimer: I don't work there, but I have known many people with gossipy wives and girlfriends who have and who do. Also, if you are hired in from a company that is acquired by MS, they'll keep you at the previous company's salary level even if that is beyond the MS pay grade for the same position. Which can cause some resentment...

http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp ... SDAQ:MSFT&

The party ended around 1999. The salary was never anything out of the ordinary, it was the stock options that led to the idea of the "Microsoft Millionaire". For some reason, people still want to believe there's something extraordinary about a job at MS, but without the stock moving ever upward those days are over.

Good job. good salary, great benefits, but for the vast majority of people hired there in the last 7 years, that's all a job at Microsoft is.

Lake Hills Renter, you could get out more easily than you may suspect. We know a guy who recently did that, left a job of long tenure (and increasing bureacracy, with decreasing group morale and time spent writing code) for a new one, much closer to home as well as closer to the product, working in an industry he loves. The benefits are just as good with maybe more upside, and he is very much revivified, reinvested in the creative/intellectual endeavor of his work. There's still sufficient cachet associated with Microsoft, rightly or wrongly, that to recruiters your five years will be a coup for them. If you interview well, you're basically set. I've heard some people speculate though that within a few years, that cachet may have dissipated, and applicants from MS may not have the same luster, they will be considered inflexible and too steeped in a particular, bureacracy heavy -- and code-writing light -- corporate culture. The bloom is already off the rose from the good old days you and Faster refer to. Our friend reports that before he left, the best and smartest people from his group, many of whom he'd worked with for years, had been leaving one by one.

Sorry for the pep talk so early in the morning. For a lot of reasons, Microsoft just looks like a poor choice of a long game. Several job functions there were recruited out of my graduate program, and it was nobody's first choice or maybe even second.

Having Microsoft stated as an employer of two years (or more) on a mortgage application has considerable weight. I don't suggest changing jobs unless a great opportunity comes along you want to take. After you get into a home, you can do whatever you want to pay the bills.

I wonder how accurate Glassdoor is, or how truthful the information gathered is. I bet it is a hot topic at the water cooler or at the door of HR.

Oh good point, thanks C. My own eye was too much on the short game there.

So -- getting o/t here -- are there employers or categories of employers, or even categories of jobs, that carry similar heft on mortgage applications? I know that a year or more in a government job (the point after which you can pretty much only be fired with the aid of massive legal firepower) will do an applicant much good. And probably working for a startup is less good. But what else?

I didn't mean to give the wrong impression -- I'm not looking for a new job or dislike working at Microsoft. I rather like my job, actually. I was just saying, if a fantastic opportunity presented itself, I would seriously consider it. The days of Microsoft being the penultimate company to work for are long over, but I do enjoy what I do and the people I work with.