The vast majority of the answers to this question, including mine, will be one-sided. That's because learning about a big company doesn't happen overnight, and people who've been around for a decade or two don't come here to answer questions to make their presence felt. That's why the reviews you see, especially in this category such as corporate culture, are all about the culture of groups of coworkers who have only been at Microsoft for a few years or months. No sarcasm intended, as I'm in one myself. Just a reminder that listening to both is a good thing, and listening to both is a bad thing.
But even then, there are elements that can be taken at face value, mainly information related to the hardware of the organization. For example, benefits, working environment, salary (this company has a rule not to say) and so on. These contents basically can't be wrong if you don't try to fake it subjectively, and can be used as a very suitable reference.
Because Microsoft's treatment of departing employees is still very reliable for the most part, you shouldn't see a lot of answers that are specifically designed to hack Microsoft. But this also leads to the problem that the answers are more about Microsoft's strengths and less about its weaknesses. So I'm going to be picky here, and unfortunately my answer will be the same - after all, my boss follows V's tweets, so who knows if he'll see this answer one day =w= As for what to do, please refer to the first point, or use your brain again... ...
Well, since the hardware content is more objective, let's move on to Microsoft hardware. Try to pick something to say that no one else has written about.
The first thing is the salary that everyone is most concerned about. The value can't be said because of the regulations, but as an undergraduate who joined the company in a big year of recruitment, it's not much of a problem to have a good time in Beijing, and if you want to save up, you can save up.
This is all about the salary! It's not there!
Working environment, in fact, can be imagined certainly better than the vast majority of companies. Just look at my R&D department alone, there are two 15-20 story buildings within the 4th Ring Road that I built myself, how many other companies in Beijing can do that?
In fact, the working environment is also very comfortable, the company's internal air exchange system to ensure that PM2.5 is always a single digit, warm in winter and cool in summer, of course, so we still often spit out the building's internal temperature distribution is not uniform, think about it really greedy ah ......
The floor is carpeted, no matter whether it is walking or pulling a chair will not make a lot of noise. Pulling chairs will not make a lot of noise. There won't be any construction or cleaning work during office hours either, those are usually done on weekends. I'm guessing the noise source for the whole building is mainly from loud coworkers and mechanical keyboards.
Each floor has a number of meeting rooms and Focus Rooms, the latter of which is a small room that can hold three or four people and is soundproofed well enough for a few people to have an impromptu discussion or go in and meditate by themselves.
FTEs (full-time employees) have big seats, and it doesn't matter if the table is a little messy. However, interns are sometimes a bit more miserable, like @GuanShuwei, who can get a single room by himself is just paying for the RP in advance.
In general, interns will still get FTE seats if they have them, but when seating is tight, three people will be crammed into two neighboring seats, or even two or three people will be crammed into a Focus Room.
As the saying goes, "food is the most important thing," but Microsoft's side of the story is not so perfect in this regard. Of course, it's only imperfect, after all, they have a cafeteria, a western restaurant, a Chinese restaurant and a coffee shop, and food safety is still quite high, and all kinds of supervision and reporting mechanism is also very perfect. Coupled with a variety of fruits and beverages on each floor every day small snacks supply, leading a large part of the company is still no problem.
But compared with the big Google is still a little worse!
First of all, the cafeteria is charged, although there are meal supplements, but if two meals a day are eaten in the company, for my kind of food is relatively large creatures still have to pay some money out of their own. Cafeteria food Beijing side of the personal feeling is not as good as Google's taste, but fortunately there are more choices, you can often change to eat. Shanghai, I think the flavor is not too bad, but the variety is a little less. Suzhou can only go outside the cafeteria and the nearby park with the company to squeeze, very sad.
Secondly, drinks are often consumed at around 6pm, and snacks are sometimes not seen all afternoon. Fruit is only available in the morning and at 3 p.m., and it looks like Google serves it all day long.
Each floor has a freshly ground coffee machine and a beverage machine, which is not the same specification for different campuses. Shanghai seems not to have a beverage machine, but the coffee machine is better than the one in Beijing, and you can beat the milk froth. I've only seen them in Suzhou but I haven't used them, they seem to be better than the ones in Beijing. This Google side is pretty much the same.
As a high profile company, how can it just be work. Entertainment programs that allow employees to relax are a must!
The recreational activities on the Beijing side are quite rich, mainly sports. There are (if I remember correctly) 7 ping pong tables, 2~3 pool tables, some Foosball and a gym. The gym is now charged, but the gym fee can be reimbursed, and the equipment is relatively complete, but still a bit insufficient during the peak hours of afternoon and evening. Then on the ping-pong room floor there was a room with a drum set, a few guitars and basses. Later, I realized that some of my colleagues had formed a band. In addition, the company also has a lot of associations, soccer, badminton, table games, etc., will organize regular activities, such as every Tuesday in the NPC to rent a soccer field. XBox seems to be not much to see, some floors of the lounge to see, but it seems to be unable to use, and I have not seen people to play.
Shanghai is a Game Room on each floor with ping pong foosball and XBox, but when I was there the XBox handle was often out of battery, and the batteries had to be brought in by myself, so I don't know what's going on now.
Suzhou is still a tough place to work, with nothing but a foosball table on every floor, and you have to go out and find your own entertainment. The main reason why Suzhou's colleagues are so miserable is that Microsoft's own building in Suzhou Park is not yet built, and the current building is rented. So when the building is built in a few years, it should not be worse than Beijing and Shanghai.
In addition to sports, the company or each team will also organize many activities every now and then. Some of them are official, others are self-funded, and the latter basically depends on the atmosphere of the group. For example, we have a group to find a fresh place to eat and play cards every now and then. There are official events such as the annual general meeting, which is also known as a trip. There's also Family Day and other events.
The next step is to talk about the company's geography and surroundings.
Microsoft's R&D locations in China are characterized by their proximity to the best local universities. For example, Beijing is surrounded by Tsinghua University, NPC, Shanghai is next to the Jiaotong University, Suzhou is two steps to the University of Suzhou. In order to recruit conveniently, this everyone understands. Gossip, I heard that the Beijing government assigned Microsoft another piece of land farther away, the area is much larger than the current two buildings, but because it is too far away from the Qingbei, was ultimately rejected.
So the Beijing building was built in a busy area within the fourth ring road of Zhongguancun. This also greatly facilitates colleagues, surrounded by restaurants theaters supermarkets shopping malls, walking ten minutes to the subway station, cycling ten minutes to Qingbei.
But Shanghai and Suzhou are more miserable, located in Zizhu Science Park and Suzhou Industrial Park respectively. The former is located in Minhang District, also affectionately called Minhang Development Zone by our Jiao Tong University students. The latter doesn't look very remote, but I walked out at night on my last business trip and couldn't find a place to eat.