I worked and left Microsoft in the past two years.

For some background -- I was always the 'linux guy' in school/college, trying my best to use non-MS alternatives, just out of purse spite for the 'big corporation’ I guess.

Anyway, I got a sweet offer straight out of college while I was rejected by Google (might have something to do with me having low GPA).

I worked at Microsoft for about 18 months. For me, the work environment, compensation and benefits were simply amazing.

The main reason I left was to pursue goals of doing independent software development which worked really well for me when I was in college. I found that work more satisfying and I wanted to do more of that.

What was your position there? Did your friends bust you a bit for going to work there as a Linux guy? :)

My position was SDET or "Software Design Engineer in Test". What the title means, how it interacts with other titles is fairly complicated and depends on the group. Overall though, the position was technical and involved coding which some people might assume it doesn't.

I did get a lot of flak for turning on my 'open source ideals' but I just ignored it and I learnt enough new things at my time at Microsoft to be convinced it was a good choice after college.

I worked in MS for 10 years and still work here and I think it can be a great place to work, with one caveat - it depends on the group. Microsoft is not a monolith and different groups have different managers, different cultures (values and expertise among peers), different customers, different business and are in different stages (e.g. mature product, young product, life support etc). Most discussions about life at Microsoft are bound to be characteristic of small number of groups and not necesarily representative.

The benefits are mostly the same across the board, and you can get those at glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/Microsoft-Salaries-E1651.h...

Yep, I heard the same thing about ms... it really depends on the group there. That's an understated important point to consider anywhere.

I think Microsoft has had longer to adjust to the fact that they're not the new hotness and is probably closer to recruiting / compensating accordingly.

You NAILED it.

I wrote about my internship experiences at Microsoft and Google a while back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=227162>. What you say pretty much sums it up.

Google is just so used to being the hot cool shit and they haven't been large enough for long enough to realize that simply isn't true any more. Don't get me wrong, they are both incredible places to work, but Google needs to adjust to their new count and composition of employees.

Luckily, the original article is just one of many bits of proof that Google is aware of problems and is working to resolve them. Microsoft would never show this level of transparency for (the obviously justified) fear of these sorts of forum posts leaking.

When I was interning at Amazon a little while back I was quite surprised to hear from Google interns how little they were being paid (in comparison, the salary is still respectable). I'd always imagined Google to be the type that showered you in money/perks simply because of their Googliness.

Turns out they rely on the "but we're GOOGLE!" schtick a lot when hiring.

I can't say much for full time employees, but I've heard the exact opposite for interns. The Google interns I've spoken with all said Google was their best offer as far as compensation goes.

I got internship and full time SWE jobs at Google. They're competitive. About the same as Microsoft (though, they have better insurance and different tax situation), I'd say pay is comparable (I am getting quite a bit of income out of the food lets say). All in the last two years.

The people I know directly also got Google offers as good or better than anything else - keeping in mind this was 2+ years ago.

Microsoft has gone from the company that promised you the ability to never work again in 7 years to a place that's your usual 5pm parking lot traffic jam. Compared to those days, compensation has fallen off a cliff.

However, with respect to slinging code at any non-equity day gig, Microsoft's rates are great. Microsoft has a lot of Partnerships with other large companies that stretch their benefit package.

Put it another way, when I interviewed there and asked about compensation, the recruiter simply said, "You can still go to any dealership in the area and say, "I just got hired at Microsoft" and expect to be approved on the spot, regardless of past credit history."

There was an interesting blog posting a while back about life at google from a "microsoftie" perspective:

http://no2google.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/life-at-google-the...