I was at Microsoft for two internships and two fulltime years. I never once had an office to myself, I always had to share. In fact, the new Studios buildings a

I was at Microsoft for two internships and two fulltime years. I never once had an office to myself, I always had to share. In fact, the new Studios buildings are almost entirely "6 packs" of cubicles. As for hardware, if you really needed it we were able to get it, but there was a fair bit of scavenging for spare parts to power build/test machines. There was also a shortage of Xbox and especially Win Phone dev kits. My day to day coding experience varied wildly by task. Some stuff had a 2 minute turnaround, most stuff 2 hours, and some stuff several days. The politics, infighting, and Redmond isolationism are all very real, and very painful. That said, the company is huge, so experiences differ broadly across the various orgs.