Microsoft

"My experience is in the UK. I have been here 15 years and love the company culture. If you like working with smart, friendly and collaborative people. Having fun at work, being empowered to work when and where you want and to feel that your work has real impact then consider Microsoft. My 2 kids both went to the on campus nursery and now they are 11and 14 they sometimes accompany me into the office for a day. I know nowhere else like it. I have the freedom to set my own schedule and fit work around family. Work has supported and promoted me throughout my career."

"I've worked here more than 20 years. It has really changed over the years. I have faced subtle and not-so-subtle bias over the years that has affected my career and financial compensation. Age-discrimination is as bad, if not worse, than sex discrimination, which combined, is pretty bad for women over 40. You can expect to be "managed out" sometime in your forties whether you are a man or a woman. The recent change to the review system has turned the system into a subjective evaluation (popularity contest) rather than one based on facts around what was accomplished. I would recommend looking only at teams that clearly have a higher ratio of technical women than average (which can be found on the Microsoft website.)"

"It can be a boys club."

"I've been here almost 10 years. Some groups are fantastic about treating everyone commensurate to their skills. Others perpetuate the boy's club - not listening to women or even not inviting them to meetings that are important. If looking at this co, ensure you talk to everyone you can in the group..."

"There are lots of career opportunities for women and there is a growing openness to improve the experience for women. Networking is still very important for all employees to get recognition and opportunities. Managers are better equipped and skilled at managing across differences and not just from a gender perspective."

"I have worked at Microsoft for 5 years and it is generally a decent place to work for women. It is more difficult if you are in engineering or have an engineering centric role as it is very male dominated and the men are generally hot heads, think they know it all. The company is decently good at work/life balance for men and women, but its very manager specific."