4 ms·

Were your friends working in Azure or were you interviewing in Azure? Asking because Azure is the only place where I've heard about it (and even then, rarely).

Were your friends working in Azure or were you interviewing in Azure? Asking because Azure is the only place where I've heard about it (and even then, rarely). I have friends all over MSFT (at their main Redmond HQ campus, not remote offices), and no one outside of Azure works over 40/week. The occasional overtimes/crunches happen so infrequently, they could count the number of those days per year on one hand. And even an average workweek frequently falls under 40/week (all engineering btw, cannot comment on other positions like PM or design). I honestly am baffled by your info, because Microsoft definitely has a reputation here for being one of the more "relaxed" tech companies. In fact, that's one of the biggest reasons I am staying, because I could definitely make noticeably more by switching to another tech giant, but I don't want to lose my work-life balance, as it isn't easy to find at all.

whimsicalism 6y ago
My SO is on a team on Microsoft where they are expected to not infrequently work weekends and work until 8 PM. e: Thought this was outside of Azure, but I was wrong
- filoleg 6y ago
  Sorry to hear that, and I realize that what I said is as much of anecdata as what you said, but this sounds more like an exception. Those exceptions do happen. For example, Amazon is known to be a brutal meatgrinder for engineers, and most of the experiences I've heard of from people I know irl support that assertion. That reputation isn't a secret to absolutely anyone. However, there are definitely those rare few teams at Amazon that are actually quite nice about work-life balance and are extremely functional, without any usual bs you would expect from an average Amazon team. But those teams are absolutely an exception. Is your SO on Xbox by any chance? Not asking it to invalidate what you have said, I am just genuinely curious. Plus, it would be another good datapoint for me to be aware of in the future. I was guessing Xbox because anything gaming-related is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear about insane work hours.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Ah okay - actually the team they are on is within Azure, my fault for getting that wrong. Seeing them WFH has been really eye-opening on how bad & micromanaging managers can get.
qbasic_forever 6y ago
I spent 8 years in engineering at MS in the 2000s--it was no worse or better than any other tech company. There was never an explicit expectation to work more than 40 hours, and most managers were good about not pressuring people into disturbing work-life balance. But, at the end of the year you were calibrated against all of your peers and WLB was not a criteria that mattered. If you just put in your 40 hours you probably wouldn't get fired, but you definitely were not going to be promoted when compared to the people cranking out more work per week. There was a big divide with the younger, fresher folks working all the time (and making their work very visible). Once you were a senior dev you kind of had a choice to make--if you wanted to keep a high 'promotional velocity' you had to keep working >40 hour weeks or be left in the dust. If you didn't want to climb that ladder then it was totally fine but you would never be promoted beyond another level or two. I knew folks who were senior devs for 10, 15, or even more years. In contrast the partners/high performers were all regularly getting promotions every 2 years or less and absolutely none of them I knew worked less than 60-80 hours a week. To get promoted up to principal and beyond levels required having a consistent history of promotions every couple years--there was no way to really pause or slow down without stopping your entire career development. From my friends still left there I don't think much has changed over the years. It's a somewhat subtle system where managers and HR can proudly point to never requiring people to work crunch time. They can trot out plenty of 10 year senior engineers to give quotes and talk about how it's so great to just work 40 hour weeks. But at the end of the day if you want to be successful and rise up the ranks at MS, you are going to be working all the time, period (at least until you reach partner level).
- jdsully 6y ago
  I joined around 2010, the transition was in full swing at that time. Microsoft seemed like a much more aggressive work environment in the 90s/2000s. Around when I joined I didn't know anyone who got to senior without sleeping in their office for a few weeks getting their feature out. By the time I left that was unheard of. But everything is relative to which org and even which team your on. Windows vs Office are going to be completely different as will Azure.
- sshumaker 6y ago
  Yes but this is true of all jobs. If you want to climb the ladder it requires extra work particularly between levels as you typically have to already be doing the job of the next level to get promoted into it. Work life balance doesn’t mean 50-50. The balance is a personal decision and can even change based on life and career stage. Organizations with good WLB enable employees to make that tradeoff and accommodate a wide range of choices.

whimsicalism 6y ago

My SO is on a team on Microsoft where they are expected to not infrequently work weekends and work until 8 PM. e: Thought this was outside of Azure, but I was wrong

filoleg 6y ago
Sorry to hear that, and I realize that what I said is as much of anecdata as what you said, but this sounds more like an exception. Those exceptions do happen. For example, Amazon is known to be a brutal meatgrinder for engineers, and most of the experiences I've heard of from people I know irl support that assertion. That reputation isn't a secret to absolutely anyone. However, there are definitely those rare few teams at Amazon that are actually quite nice about work-life balance and are extremely functional, without any usual bs you would expect from an average Amazon team. But those teams are absolutely an exception. Is your SO on Xbox by any chance? Not asking it to invalidate what you have said, I am just genuinely curious. Plus, it would be another good datapoint for me to be aware of in the future. I was guessing Xbox because anything gaming-related is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear about insane work hours.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Ah okay - actually the team they are on is within Azure, my fault for getting that wrong. Seeing them WFH has been really eye-opening on how bad & micromanaging managers can get.

qbasic_forever 6y ago

I spent 8 years in engineering at MS in the 2000s--it was no worse or better than any other tech company. There was never an explicit expectation to work more than 40 hours, and most managers were good about not pressuring people into disturbing work-life balance. But, at the end of the year you were calibrated against all of your peers and WLB was not a criteria that mattered. If you just put in your 40 hours you probably wouldn't get fired, but you definitely were not going to be promoted when compared to the people cranking out more work per week. There was a big divide with the younger, fresher folks working all the time (and making their work very visible). Once you were a senior dev you kind of had a choice to make--if you wanted to keep a high 'promotional velocity' you had to keep working >40 hour weeks or be left in the dust. If you didn't want to climb that ladder then it was totally fine but you would never be promoted beyond another level or two. I knew folks who were senior devs for 10, 15, or even more years. In contrast the partners/high performers were all regularly getting promotions every 2 years or less and absolutely none of them I knew worked less than 60-80 hours a week. To get promoted up to principal and beyond levels required having a consistent history of promotions every couple years--there was no way to really pause or slow down without stopping your entire career development. From my friends still left there I don't think much has changed over the years. It's a somewhat subtle system where managers and HR can proudly point to never requiring people to work crunch time. They can trot out plenty of 10 year senior engineers to give quotes and talk about how it's so great to just work 40 hour weeks. But at the end of the day if you want to be successful and rise up the ranks at MS, you are going to be working all the time, period (at least until you reach partner level).

jdsully 6y ago
I joined around 2010, the transition was in full swing at that time. Microsoft seemed like a much more aggressive work environment in the 90s/2000s. Around when I joined I didn't know anyone who got to senior without sleeping in their office for a few weeks getting their feature out. By the time I left that was unheard of. But everything is relative to which org and even which team your on. Windows vs Office are going to be completely different as will Azure.
sshumaker 6y ago
Yes but this is true of all jobs. If you want to climb the ladder it requires extra work particularly between levels as you typically have to already be doing the job of the next level to get promoted into it. Work life balance doesn’t mean 50-50. The balance is a personal decision and can even change based on life and career stage. Organizations with good WLB enable employees to make that tradeoff and accommodate a wide range of choices.