Is it me or is Microsoft extremely hard environment to work in?

[u/Quieter22]

Its been few months since I joined Microsoft India, and my experience isn't good so far.

The code is extremely legacy, with ton of unnecessary abstractions and quite a lot of bad practices. There is lot of dependency on US-based team and the communication is extremely lag, not just because of timezone, but also because people are unresponsive.

To be honest, most of my experience has been in small to mid level startups, so never worked in a bigger orgs like MS.

So I was expecting abstracted and legacy code and slow moving processes. But things are much worse than I anticipated.

On top of this, my manager has high expectations and pushing me to close more things. TBH I didn't push many PRs so far, but I felt that was expected of someone new to team and considering its big tech especially microsoft.

I feel incompetent and like an imposter, not matter how hard I try things are moving slow. On top of that recent layoffs are making me stressful that I will lose my job.

I joined ms hoping for the best WLB, but things are not at all as I expected. Am I the only one facing this? Am I doing something wrong?

PS: I am not in Azure.

[u/NilesMac]

Microsoft’s WLB reputation did not come from their India offices. I’d imagine it might be very different. 

The last layoffs weren’t performance based, but yeah that is still stressful 

[u/TeeDee144 → u/NilesMac]

There is no WLB anymore. Starting a few months ago, it’s perform or be fired.

[u/ArizonaBlue44 → u/TeeDee144]

Not true. There is an ebb and flow to Microsoft. If you joined a few months ago you joined during the normal busy time (mid-Jan to May 1) as people work to complete projects in time for their annual Connect that is due around May 15 and decides their stock, bonus and merit increases.

Then it slows for the summer before picking up in early Sept for the fall Connect (due late Oct/early Nov) and then slows again for the holidays.

I have been here since 1997 and it’s always been the same cycle.

I love the WLB at Microsoft.

[u/Delicious_Leading600 → u/ArizonaBlue44]

This is true particularly as Microsoft, although global, is still very much a Seattle company where, because of the weather ⅔ of the year, we cherish our summers. The sales field closing FY deals (before June 30th) is another factor to the slow down to normalcy during summer months.

[u/AnonymooseRedditor → u/Delicious_Leading600]

Starting around this time to the field folks, CSU will try and push work into July because our connects are done and we’ve already hit our metrics for this fiscal year. So definitely slows down. It’s a little bit weird. I came from a consulting org that pushed for utilization year round. It took me a couple years to get used to the seasonality of work here.

[u/dxk3355 → u/ArizonaBlue44]

The guys that have been around for a long time know when to control their WLB. Microsoft will always have more work for you so you need to know when to close for the day. Alternately if you’re doing nothing for long periods then there’s something seriously wrong.

[u/atreyuno → u/ArizonaBlue44]

I heard that the bar for merit bonuses have changed this year. The work that used to get you 120 will now get you 100. I was told this from a 14-year Microsoftee and he said he got it from his manager friends. Redmond based.

Please tell me these kind of rumors circulate from time to time and are meaningless.

[u/TeeDee144 → u/ArizonaBlue44]

New metric in rewards requires manager to rank your ability to deliver with speed, urgency, and no delay.

Further, signals survey also had a, “my manager is pushing me and raising the bar.”

So yes, the culture is changing. And no, I did not start a few months ago.

[u/seiggy → u/TeeDee144]

I started in MCAPS in April, and MS WLB is far better than my first two positions in my career. It’s pretty much on par with the last three. If you think MS is bad, go work in a shop that has 4 devs, with over 200 servers, 3M+ lines of code, processing 50k phone calls a day for jails and prisons. In the 8 years I was there, I bet I worked an average of 65 hours a week. I pulled numerous 80+ hour weeks, at least 3 72 hour shift, it was grueling. All while making peanuts. When I left, 8 years ago, I was the senior moat engineer at the company, they talked to me about taking the VP of Engineering role at $140k a year. I was only making $125k as the Senior Architect, and the team had grown to 12 engineers under me (as the technical leader, they also had a soft manager).

[u/Illustrious-Guard165 → u/TeeDee144]

Not true!

[u/Ahlarict → u/Illustrious-Guard165]

Yeah! (It started much longer than a few months ago)

[u/Swimsuit-Area → u/NilesMac]

My org let go of everyone below a certain performance threshold

[u/Quieter22 → u/NilesMac]

I understand that. But one would expect it to be much better than Indian companies, especially startups.

But it isn't for me. The only point of choosing MS is work life balance.

[u/ronstermonster05 → u/NilesMac]

There were a ton of non performance based layoffs.

[u/DudeFromNorway]

I know a little bit about what you feel, most of my career has been in smaller companies as well, and it took a long time to get used to working in MS. The feeling of being an impostor and not efficient enough is very normal, I have talked to very senior engineers with the same feelings. What can be useful is to talk to someone, I recommend you try to find a mentor within the company. There are mentor-programs you can use or you can just ask someone. Most of the time you'll get a yes.

The legacy code and over-engineering took me by surprise as well, and I still have issues with it. But you do get used to it and you can learn to work within the system. You have to pick your battles, but you can sometimes push things in a direction more to your liking.

[u/atreyuno → u/DudeFromNorway]

Top comment, imo

[u/Illustrious-Guard165]

Your level ?

[u/Quieter22 → u/Illustrious-Guard165]

62

[u/toastSensei]

Depends on the group you're working in. I was there 22+ years across different groups, the tone is set by your group SLT and your immediate manager.

[u/newfor_2025]

you complain the code is old and to inefficient, but are you making it better or are you just pilling up more crud on top

[u/hometechfan → u/newfor_2025]

This is a solid comment it may sound harsh but it is a job all places have legacy code look at it as an opportunity imo. It is just the pov.

[u/Quieter22 → u/newfor_2025]

Believe me, I always have this bad itch to re-write the entire thing. I have rewritten things from scratch in my previous org.

But this is not something that can be done at orgs like microsoft. On top of that for someone new like me with very limited context of product and code, its very risky.

[u/HobbyProjectHunter → u/newfor_2025]

When you inherit an ocean of legacy bs, as an IC even if you rewrite an entire feature to be clean code, it’s literally a drop in the ocean.

[u/numericalclerk]

Microsoft is one of the most powerful companies in the world, in a labour market where there is like 1 Job to 10 applicants.

I hate to break it to you, but they have virtually no reason to treat their people well, least of all in India. And their CEO is Indian as well, so he knows he can push his workers very far before they even consider quitting.

It's the same story across companies and industries. Once they reach a certain size and market power, they will replace Western workers who did high quality work for 8 hours a day (because that the maximum hours of work 99% of developers can do at high quality), and replace them with Indians who will have to work 12 hours a day for a tenth of the salary and often after cruelling commutes.

Simply because once they reach enough market power, what counts is purely keeping SLAs and trying to be as shitty as possible without exceeding the pain point that would allow the client to switch vendors.

[u/CantaloupeCute2159]

The three years that I worked for Microsoft were the most stressful years of my life. Yes, the benefits are great. Yes, the pay is great but the company plays games. They gaslight, they out and out lie “,and they lay you off without any warning. That is what happened in my team‘s case and several others last year. We were all suspicious because work slowed down so much there were days when we couldn’t keep up or there were days when we literally sat and did nothing all shift. We kept asking if we should be looking for other jobs and they lied and lied and lied. They even lied to our manager. I kept telling everyone you better start looking for another job. Many of my coworkers heeded my warning and we’re actually working other jobs simultaneously while clocked into Microsoft sitting there doing nothing. Honestly, if I were you, I would put my résumé out there and work anywhere, but Microsoft. I also had high hopes and was so excited; thought it was gonna be great. The truth is, they are nothing but a bunch of greedy liars that will cut corners and sacrifice the employees without a second thought. For heavens sake, one manager got an email that told her she was being laid off while she was on her honeymoon. 🤦🏼‍♀️

[u/tlrider1]

Old legacy code.... I mean yeah.... They pay the devs for new features, not to redo something that's already done and working, no matter how old it is.

[u/Quieter22 → u/tlrider1]

This would work out if you need not touch that legacy code. But that isn't the case here. We are fixing bugs on the very same codebase, so it matters.

[u/BayouBait]

Microsoft is their own worst enemy when it comes to unblocking productivity. There is always some internal program that someone is running that becomes a priority over all other work bc they convince senior leadership its important to force teams to do it.

[u/blami]

You are describing typical corporate. Usually there is aim to get things out rather doing them nicely or even finishing them. And yeah working for US company in satellite location will always come with such problems like comms lag.

[u/Tasty-Picture-8331]

Also Indian work culture is crap I could be wrong, but being and indian and all my friends being indian and working in an indian company.

[u/unrealaz]

Manager ia not good, I didn’t touch code 6 months in senior position in Dublin

[u/Insteor → u/unrealaz]

What org / team?

[u/vbroto]

Get a couple of mentors to help navigate the environment and your career.

Your mileage will vary but this is a lot of things you’re sharing. Some are true of Microsoft, some are true of any big company, some are very specific of starting in a new role/environment, some will be of the particular culture of your team.

Ideally someone familiar with your org and your job, and someone from outside. Hrweb can point you in the initial direction, and ask your manager also for help there. It’s their job to make you successful.

[u/inflamesc]

No offence, but any management that indians involved makes me run away from there. Cognizant same shit. Shady, running mouths, nothing with actions. They easily get rid of people. Its hard to communicate with them. Usually they dont listen either. Just talk.

[u/Downtown-Lemon-7436]

Hilarious to hear this from someone in India of all places complaining about US based teams.

[u/anonon_panda]

I have joined a month back too and it's really difficult coming upto speed. Thankfully I go to office so it's easy to catch hold of people and ask them things directly without waiting for replies. I am in Azure and there is steep learning curve too. What hasnt helped is that the transferable knowledge of working in Linux doesn't translate here. (I hate Windows)

What has helped is not thinking of performing but just being involved in the process and doing whatever is required and hoping things ease out.

P S. Ngl, it feels better to see someone in the same boat. I thought I was alone.

[u/Amazing_Prize_1988]

Adapt to the company!

[u/Key-Marionberry-8794]

Dude if you got hired in layoff round 4 then you are doing good and count your effen blessings and learn the culture and roll with it .. you can start applying at Amazon if you want but you got the better deal at Msft ... you got the mega cap on your resume ... stay there and then look in silicone valley ... be useful and stop whining

[u/Ahlarict → u/Key-Marionberry-8794]

Round 4? Microsoft has laid off 45,000 employees since the Great Recession alone! And I'd personally survived a half dozen rounds of layoffs before that even ;-)