It kindof sucks waking up every day, checking HN or YouTube to see one or several new posts bashing on your employer. Not that many of them aren't warranted, and that a multi-trillion market cap company isn't fair game for criticism.
I've surveyed the market pretty heavily, and given my specific credentials, experience, and risk tolerance, unless I got really lucky, I don't know if I could find a better place to work. I live near Redmond and have a small family to support.
Microsoft have been bashed on the daily since forever. There's no way you joined the company without knowing it was happening prior to you joining, at the time of you joining, and after you joining.
It's true. As a matter of fact I credit a lot of my career to being made fun of on IRC in the 1990s for running mIRC client for Windows, because you were not "leet" if you didn't run Linux or FreeBSD, which took my down a huge rabbit-hole of Linux and coding for many years, which is how I know anything in the first place. I'm in the tiny minority of people in big tech who didn't go to college.
The bashing on MSFT has really ramped up in the last 6 months though
Rather than saying that microsoft bashing has ramped up, I'd say that it is getting closer to it's standard levels.
Microsoft experience a sort of reputational resurgence in the tech world these past few years with some commitment to open source contribution and a really nice pivot towards linux and cloud.
Their pivot to AI is much less popular!
The AI stuff and Windows 11 have been big drivers of bashing
Yes and you're in a unique position to influence the internal culture. Not saying send emails to executives but talk about things during lunch with coworkers?
Ah, is that not going to college part why you're loathe to give up such a good gig? Surely by now your CV speaks for itself, although I suppose in Redmond, where else are you going to go.
It is, although considering my age (41), I would hope the college thing is not very important anymore. The only time in recent history that I've been ghosted after mentioning no degree (when asked) is ByteDance a few years back, and I don't think I'd want to work there anyways.
Google has offices in Kirkland. Amazon and Meta are big employers here, with Meta paying the best, but both of those companies have their own issues which are probably worse than just being made fun of ..
For what it's worth, my take is Microsoft is the one Big Tech most aligned with us and the rest of the world, though HN is too Slashdot-pilled to accept it.
The primary reason being their business model relies mostly on making people productive, rather than getting people to click on ads or buy stuff, which as we're seeing, is much more damaging to the social fabric.
People don't like your company.
But they'd probably like you.
<3
I propose let's break up a bunch of these monopolies to give you and your colleagues more options, more competition for your resume.
There can be quite a big difference on the reception of a product and the working conditions. I think that's nothing too out of the ordinary in a lot of cases.
It apparently used to be even much better to work here. I've been here 6 years now. There is naturally a lot of "talent" exchanged between here and Amazon, which has influenced the culture.