Microsoft COMPANY REVIEW 2021 | Software Engineer

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IS MICROSOFT REALLY A GREAT PLACE TO WORK? WHAT ARE THE PERKS? HOW ARE THE BENEFITS? WHAT IS IT REALLY LIKE WORKING AT MICROSOFT?
MICROSOFT COMPANY REVIEW 2021 by a MSFT SWE
PIRATE KING | Software Engineer | Entertainment | Tech Life | Industry Mentor | Career Advice | SWE Consultation
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- Tips and tricks on how to land a successful career in tech
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=== My KZbin Filming Setup ===
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- iPhone SE2
Related Links
- Microsoft Benefits careers.microsoft.com/us/en/u...
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- How I Aced My Microsoft Interview • How I ACED MICROSOFT I...
- How to Effectively Prepare for LeetCode • How to Use LeetCode Ef...
- Best Programming Languages for LeetCode • Best Programming Langu...
- How I Built My Personal Bookkeeping App • Learn to Code for FREE...
Timeline
0:00 Opening
0:49 First Impression
2:21 Amazon vs Microsoft
4:32 Technologies
5:12 Frontend
6:24 Backend
7:21 Perks
10:12 Giving
11:06 Pros & Cons
14:01 Closing
Welcome to Pirate King. I'm a Software Engineer at Microsoft, ex-Software Engineer at Amazon and ebay. Apart from my full-time job, I also provide consultation and career mentoring to prospective Software Engineers. Here, we talk about tips and tricks on how to land a successful career in tech. If you are interested, make sure to hit that subscribe button!
❗️ All opinions are my own and not my employer's.
#MicrosoftReview #MicrosoftLife #MicrosoftPerks
#MicrosoftBenefits #MicrosoftGiving
Filmed with iPhone SE 2
Music by Yeri
PIRATE KING
Software Engineer + Career Mentor in Tech

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

What would you give Microsoft out of 10? 👇

[@davidwoo2268]

10 for medical benefit and all other tons of benefit!

[@lequdindoquede78]

if Google 10, Microsoft 8.2

[@kavithabs611]

Great video

[@tonystark4597]

Microsoft is a great company but mine is much better

[@AzaB2C]

Really depends which Team and Group you're in. Microsoft, like many LARGE Tech companies has many micro cultures/cults. Always work for excellent world class Managers and skip Managers. Expect regular reorgs as turf wars are won and lost.

[@whoknocks7]

"Meetings to discuss how to reduce the number of meetings" bro you had me dying with that 😂😂😂😂😂

[@Neon2110]

I think that’s corporate problem now

[@anthonywalker6168]

callmeeting() { while(!insane){ callmeeting();} - modern corporate activity.

[@kenzito101]

The fact that you could make this video is proof of how chilled Microsoft is as an employer 😅

[@sebdoucet_fr]

Yup, can't even mention mine, all communication have to be controlled...

[@danielvinicius4906]

I'm Brazilian and I use your videos for learn English and in the same time watch stuff cools and utilities, subtitles is very important! Thanks for put subtitles! Congratulations to the video

[@captcheems4501]

Just stumbled on your channel as I just started my CIS courses this fall! Currently learning the basics and started with C++. I really like how you are an insider in the industry and are able to give us outsiders insider info! I really hope you can make more videos on how you or a person should get started!

[@maddy3656]

It sounds like a kind and caring employer. Plus, I think Microsoft has the most inspiring leadership out of all of FAANG companies. 🥰

[@dwaynearthur1476]

Hey Study what you just said , “Inspiring leadership “from a leader in a “FANNG “Company !!! .You know what has Fangs right !? Snakes and Vampires …🤣🤣😂😂😂

[@pjchacon]

I'm a 20-yo employee. I saw the last of the Gates era and lived all through the Ballmer stagnation. I've seen the culture of the company make a huge change under Satya. An amazing change. Still not perfect, but it is so different from how it was 20 years ago. I agree that while it is not always easy to deal with, the care for security is reflected in many of the internal processes and policies. For me, the biggest downside is that here in WA, MS is not a pet-friendly workplace. Urban rumors talk about an incident decades ago, when a customer was attacked by an employee's dog in an MS building.

[@CultureShockAddict]

No offense, but is it with people and their obsession with bringing their pets everywhere? I have a severe allergy, and once had to give away my seat on a flight, and catch another one, all because the airline did not want to re-book the passenger traveling with her dog (no it was not a legal aid animal, just a regular pet, the attendant informed me.) Even more, when I used to work in the gig economy during college, people would come to the door and just let their dogs burst out, and bark at me, and some even try to jump on me as I run to get away. Maybe it's cultural differences, but I just don't understand, not everyone loves dogs, and some people may have serious health risks

[@heathbar8015]

@@CultureShockAddict I'm taking my dog on flight with me because I'm going to be at home over the holidays for 3 weeks. Hope everyone doesn't hate me lmao I'm flying first in hopes there's more space T_T I'm really dreading it tbh

[@foreducation408]

My man telling straight facts, keep up the good work.

[@jzoe16]

As a Microsoft employee myself, I can confirm most of the things of the video, although I think employees here in Costa Rica are not boring, not completely fun, but not boring either, somewhere in the middle

[@Sorcerer86pt]

I think it can depend on campus and team composition. Maybe local culture can change team dynamics and how they perceive work

[@MonniqueArnold]

Oh I think I just found my new homie!! I love how honest and snarky you are!!! It's so refreshing!! I've been watching a lot of wfh swe videos lately. Why? Who knows! But I LOVE intelligent people and SWEs are def among them. Thank for making these insightful and funny videos!!

[@KatoKrazy]

We have similar benefits at Intel including the matching donations. Great video!

[@krzy122]

Definitely going to try my best in my final round interview at Microsoft that I have in a few weeks after hearing your pros/cons. Seems like a great company to work for.

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Best of luck!

[@hgiles7280]

Can we get an update?

[@jordanjames9491]

update?

[@deepxeyes9868]

Update??

[@MochaFatTart]

Update?

[@nelsonthekinger]

Super nice review! It takes balls for such an honest review! Props!

[@slayerzerg]

Just joined and I have to say you're spot on on everything hahah. Sad about the tech stacks, hopefully C# is as amazing as you make it out to be!

[@utubes720]

Meetings and bureaucracy? You described every Fortune 100 company I’ve worked for. Don’t ever take a manager role, your entire calendar will be booked with overlapping meetings.

[@maclarel]

Am manager at relevant company, can confirm meeting problem.

[@nerdlabstudios7023]

Love your vids, informative, educational and great for the non & aspiring SW engineers like myself. 😁👍

[@snowstar000]

I’m not in the computer or tech field but I subscribed to your channel since I find you funny.. entertaining:)

[@oscarmvl]

Great video! I just wanted to mention that .NET 6 has a built-in PriotityQueue, which should make C# a great interview language now (it was the dealbreaker for me in previous years).

[@GGInfluxLoL]

Honestly sounds better than most companies

[@alexbrylov5330]

Got a few offers and accepted one at Microsoft. After watching the video I feel like I did make the best choice possible, thank you mate! :P

[@0xSingularity]

Video came out just in time! I applied for the Microsoft explore SWE Internship yesterday!

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Best of luck!

[@Ralpphie]

Sorry, I laughed when you said you guys need meetings to discuss how to reduce the number of meetings LOL! This is a very transparent video working at MSFT btw

[@dasiths]

Another Microsoftie here but in Australia. I work with external customers hence get to use a lot of non-MS tech too (as long it runs in Azure). Also while most of the benefits are similar we don't get as many things as you folks in the USA. Compared to the other big tech companies here though it's clearly the best.

[@tl2797]

Ericsson also has matching donations. Employees usually voice that they want a donation campaign for something (or company proposes, for instance for relief in hunger or covid striken poor countries) and as much as employees collect, the company will match their entire amount. Even sometimes give more than employees collected. Humanity first.

[@amitpallauri]

Thanks for the video. I am from India and i have an ambition to join one of the big tech companies like FAANGM. I am already working as a react developer so i would love to see how do you structure your code and what would be a difference between a noob coder vs you ( including good practices, how much time you should take before giving ETA etc. ) Please do a video on this. 🙏

[@bola1535]

Such informative video thanks. I’ll be interning at Microsoft Redmond next summer and I’m soo exited

[@Knochenkotzer01]

Very interesting Topics, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[@ifelsedeveloper]

잘보고있습니다 😄

[@ngweihan9896]

Inspiring

[@saralee548]

This channel already sort of blew up (I was here at 2k subscribers), but I can see you reaching like 300k subscribers by the end of this year. Great content! I usually skip through videos because they are boring but your videos are so amusing :)

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Thanks! Really encouraging! :)

[@tonystark4597]

Absolutely agree

[@yerkfrider]

My favourite benefit could be the monkey pet😂. I felt identified when you described the burocracy and the non programming stuff like pipelines, infraestructure, etc. I never would imagin this kind of activities for a software engineer in a big company

[@abhaytiwari6411]

Wonderful video we want more videos on cs related things 😁

[@ogintech6271]

It seems the number of meetings is high due to people being chill and non-responsive. In my experience, there is a meeting for everything that is not answered by an e-mail or IMs.

[@_v53]

Private offices, nice. Shame it ended. It seems only right, a measure of respect for your time & concentration... a developer worth hiring should surely produce more value than a few square metres of floor space? My WFH ends early next year... back to the crammed in open plan crap.

[@JCHuynh3011]

What I did on my first day was to remove Windows on my PC and install Linux :v

[@PoojaDutt]

Just about to join Microsoft - good to know some of these things 😂 I’m most nervous about switching from Kotlin (JVM language) to C# - I feel like I got spoilt using Micronaut/Kotlin

[@coderider3022]

Great insight to Microsoft, not many ms devs sharing considering it’s the mother of all software houses.

[@andrew_g6331]

FAANG technical recruiter here. Great content. Like and subbed

[@jensihzinzuvadiya]

I am not Microsoft but since long I am working on stuff like this. It’s batter then stuff out there in market. I am very much Interested in getting interviewed at there

[@simtiaz57]

Google has the giving/ charity benefit too. And I was just as shocked to learn about it 😬

[@nelsonthekinger]

meetings to reduce number of meetings, I laught with this one. but you are not alone It's a very processual company probably. great vid!

[@saimuntanjim2873]

thank you, sir.

[@nelsonthekinger]

Nice that you are working on azure!! did you managed to get a backend job? or you are migrating things from angular to react?

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

I’ve been working on backend since day 1 of Microsoft :p

[@ratmgant]

Wow great video! I will be starting at Microsoft out of university next year in the Azure Core team!

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Congratz!

[@ratmgant]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM Thanks 😊

[@user-xs5dp4gw8e]

'tunes' is my office. No tunes = no flow = no output. Unless I really need to concentrate on something. Then I turn the music down to zero but leave my plugs in 🎧 Telecommute 100% is the best. Seriously do you need to be in an office!?

[@Omolett0]

lmao I am in DevOps, and you had me rolling at approvals, sign offs, and permissions to deploy 😂

[@juancarlosfiorenzano6864]

Great video, I work in Microsoft and I hope I am not one of the 🤖. The only thing that I disagree or at least my experience has been different than yours is about the tech stack, the dogfooding of products and that you cannot use a mac. First the tech stack for a new project is not imposed by the company instead is responsibility of the team to decide what technology they want to use, but the “want” has to be decided pragmatically this mean taking into account the team experience and if it really has a benefit over others that the team has more experience there are a lot of projects in Microsoft than don’t use C# but node, python, go, rust and java. Dogfooding the company products is totally optional but recommended but there are no directives at least in my org that prohibit you to use the oficial release. And about mac, you can ask for one instead of having a surface, the only requirements is that your project has to be compatible with the platform I have 3 team mates that work on macs.

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

i guess it really depends on the orgs then. here, you have no option other than C#, and dogfooding is the expected choice unless you have an argument that greatly justifies it. also, surface book is a luxury item only managers have access to. it's either a pc or a laptop with windows on it for ICs. a Mac? in my dreams...

[@SilvioSangineto]

Without sharing too many details on the technologies, I regularly use a MAC, because it makes sense for my needs. So it really depends what you have to do with your laptop.

[@315Norwalk]

A team I am joining shortly uses node for one of their API's, which I thought was a nice plus because I am a node fan :)

[@NguyenTran-eq2wg]

For real, configuration and set up are always the worst thing. I would delay upgrading my laptop if that means I don't have to set up a brand new one for my workflow from scratch :v

[@puddleglum5610]

Thanks for this! I just got an offer from microsoft at the Silicon Valley Campus, so this is great info. I have one question: Does the Sililcon valley campus give free food for all meals or just lunch? Thanks!

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

I don’t believe so!

[@masterofyngwie]

I did get a Mac for the iOS Teams app 😜

[@sauce8277]

I didn't realize people naturally became software engineers because they were funny 😄

[@sylascoker1483]

God damn, I wasn’t expecting the “I don’t have to see them in person anymore” line🤣🤣🤣

[@looper6120]

Dude I am jealous now. MS is treating its employees so well. Thats called benefit.!!! Compared to free "bananas"

[@gorkemumutozkan8792]

YOU'RE FIRED!!!

[@tonystark4597]

If he get fired I’ll hire him

[@misso404]

Just received the news that I passed the final interview for Microsoft. My biggest motivation to apply was this video, MS seems like a great place to work and develop myself. Thanks!

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Awesome. Congratz!

[@sovour13]

Just started learning python the other day now am watching these videos as if i am a master programmer who has many offers

[@thendoronnyramashia749]

The way you roasted the folks at Microsoft without hesitiating has me on the floor laughing 🤣😂😂😂😂😂

[@lifegoesonmovewithit.3249]

So i don't really want to work at any company i just want to create my own holding company and then build a bunch of subsidiaries (haha dreams hey). My main goal is to create a social network but i don't know which stack to go with, i've heard about scalability and all those things one should consider when choosing a stack but as someone who is yet to start programming i don't know what to learn can you please advise? I'm in my final year of optometry by the way 😀

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Have you watched this?? kzbin.info/www/bejne/iV7ZfIWGgcl4fdk

[@GM-kj5xw]

I disagree with what you said about "fixing broken pipeline, maintain infrastructure". Since the world are moving toward DevOps culture. All these stuff have been shifted left to the development team to take care of them self with some aid from DevOps/SRE team behind the scene for speed of delivery. To eliminate as much silo between multiple infrastructure/pipeline/development team as much as possible. Therefore, software engineer these day is not only about coding, but they should be able to maintain their own pipeline/infrastructure as well.

[@ronaldomaia]

Do you have oncall shifts?

[@patrickchan2503]

so cool, to have your own office.

[@user-mh1ro1yq1g]

sofa+monitor setup = 👍

[@kaiandersom]

Avoiding Hololens? Why is that? I talked with the team there and it seemed like interesting work though they seemed stressed balancing research and delivering production hardware.

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

There’s a group within MS that speaks out against the company participating in delevoping techonologies that can potentially “help people kill”

[@SOMEONE-eq5bu]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM how does it " help people kill " i can't get any idea of how it could.

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

@@SOMEONE-eq5bu the project signed a contract with US military for warfare related r&d

[@SOMEONE-eq5bu]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM now i can get it, Thanks for the reply

[@ppmnox]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM as well they should have signed with the military. people that argue against this stuff are oddly devoid of common sense when it comes to keeping a level balance amongst nations.

[@pujagogri137]

Good review. Most big companies have too many meetings and 1000 steps for security/process to move your code change forward.

[@Manishsharma-tj4nn]

wish to know how harsh LLD and System Design rounds for 4-5 year guy at Microsoft

[@onimekyo7633]

Now you have 26K subscriber Your video on a daily life of a software engineer reality is very true All other videos about that are mostly lying

[@riyanadkarni1076]

Pirate king!! That looks just like my mom’s workplace in redmond and she worked for Microsoft and her team got relocated or something too!! Do you remember a Sapna Nadkarni??

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Nope sry! :(

[@riyanadkarni1076]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM damn

[@fbi6555]

Him: “we even have meeting to discuss how to lower the number of meetings” Microsoft: “how about we talk about this over a meeting?”

[@pieTone]

13:49 That part got me

[@saxzphone]

I work for a big tech company as a software engineer intern and all those cons are similar to what I have experienced/ seen from other engineers on other teams. The other day I tried to contact a principle engineer, in a meeting he said and I tried again, sorry in a meeting can't help right now. Help! Stackoverflow to the rescue....oh

[@dazzyella2040]

😂😂😂😂 I love your sense of humor!

[@acuraintdohc]

I work at Fidelity and they have a 200% match for non profits. I was shocked given they are a financial company.

[@cricket7994]

you heard the man. c# is the best language out there.

[@Mr_Antidote]

TechLead

[@jerrynwosu]

Sounds great to me.

[@thripnixe]

The fact that they let their employees to make videos like this says more about Microsoft than any other. Best of luck Microsoft!

[@GraphicalBoss]

Angular still alive and kicking. 💪😎

[@ggre55]

I love c#too

[@riclerico]

The ‘no offense’ had me falling of my bed. Jeez

[@Abakaschi]

Will the paid days off increase with seniority? 15days/year seem quite “restrictive”..

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Yeah, they increase by +5 days every 7 years

[@schan263]

I have 10+ years in C# but I switched to Java on leetcode because of priority queue and also the fact that many companies don't use C#. I really like open source and glad my current company can use any tech stack. It's not that Microsoft doesn't allow other tech but you need to convince the team and need to deal with legal (means extra work). Also it's difficult to maintain if coworkers are not familiar with the open source tech. They have to ramp up on it and it took some time. It's pain. When I first worked at MIcrosoft, I had to share an office with a coworker since there were not enough offices. I had a coworker who actually lived in his office to pay off student loan faster. When Bill Gates were CEO, Microsoft had the best medical benefits. There was no deductible and copay. Pay nothing for medical expenses. I felt a lot of my Microsoft coworkers were stressed and boring. I am asian from overseas myself but I prefer a team that has mostly Americans (including American born asians) over a team that has a lot of non American asians from overseas. When I said American I actually meant people from liberal western countries. When your team has a lot of asians, it changed the working culture. Many overseas asian coworkers worked like they are in asian. They worked long hours and no wlb. I don't understand how some tech engineers can work in the same company for 20 years. I like to work at different companies to experience different company culture and learn different technologies. Oh I do think C# is better than Java since C# was designed to be better than the existing languages at that time and that included Java.

[@1MinuteFlipDoc]

Where do you work now?

[@schan263]

@@1MinuteFlipDoc I don't want to mention my company but it's a big German company. Also I resigned recently and will only be there for a few more weeks. I will take a break and do the things I needed to do and then look for a job after a few months.

[@schan263]

Actually I may switch to python since it also have a heap class.

[@1MinuteFlipDoc]

@@schan263 oic! good luck on your next adventure! :)

[@frankiebaltimore9851]

Still better than the Amazon door policies esp apb’s

[@panama-canada]

11:32 - provides substantial protection? What is that supposed to mean?

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

The name value itself protects you from many things for example it's less likely to get into trouble or weird situations

[@carljohnson7131]

Hey Pirate King. I will be starting my graduation this year. Can you please make a video on how to get into game development industries like naughty dogs, Ubisoft etc. Please. It can be very helpful for me deciding my future. if it's not possible can you please answer my comment where can I find source to get some guidance on this topic

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

I honestly cannot give you any advice on this myself becuz I never had a full-time job at a game company before. I would think having a strong skill in DSA + good porfolio with proven experiences of making games yourself would help

[@carljohnson7131]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM omg you replied to me thanks. And also I understand the situation which you are referring to. Thanks for guiding me. Lots of love ♥️

[@engineered-mind]

Let’s see how this goes- Finally got an interview with my fav company - TPM

[@tanker242]

Don’t forget about all the approval you probably need to have a KZbin channel.

[@Sassybliss404]

I can also only work when no one is around.

[@monalishabal4910]

I like to study alone.😊

[@revealednew]

can i ask you if this not offensive. Why sap azure web built was suck? it was the tool fault? or the developer of one japan brand car that use it was just mess up a lot, to point their already blame it as 'microsoft error' and make us wait from september till today but still not get solved?

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

I honestly dont know lol (and not offended)

[@revealednew]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM thx for you honest reply.

[@carljohnson7131]

Sorry but I got another doubt, can you please tell me how to get into colleges like Stanford and Harvard. Can we study there while doing job in a big tech company. Or do they give a chance to do masters to experienced professionals?. I am from India and the best choice that I got rn for my bachelor's is IITs and NITs.

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Both schools would reject me if I applied so I can’t really say, but I’d say get a good score on SAT with spectacular extra curriculars :0 You can study while working although that’s usually possible for doing masters as there are programs for working professionals

[@carljohnson7131]

@@PIRATEKINGDOM thanks for guidance. ♥️

[@hgiles7280]

A recruiter reached out to me about a program manager job. Can anyone tell me what the interview process is like? (It’s a program manager job)

[@mohitchandola3435]

bro dsa playlist plss🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@fadidib8516]

the razor emerged the blazorrrrrr

[@hnwlightsugar2280]

My goal is Microsoft, starting my junior and kept leetcoding, I think I will make it.

[@truongnguyenanhvu199]

meeting to discuss on how to reduce the number of meetings.... bruh

[@benlu]

Other companies do matching of donations to charity

[@maelhive864]

Apple gives the same donation benefit!

[@mmuekk]

Do you know why Microsoft choose React, instead of Angular?

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

React is better and more popular. Simpler and easier to write and manage. At least that's what I think :p

[@ellykits3620]

Subscribed

[@sujiks9517]

How can I become a software engineer I have no experience in programming ?

[@PIRATEKINGDOM]

Check this out! kzbin.info/www/bejne/iV7ZfIWGgcl4fdk