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Flexible schedule, big emphasis on work/family balance, great teammates!

So many reasons that it's hard to list them all.

Everyone will have different reasons. I was at a crossroads in my career a few years back and put together a personal mission statement to help guide my path. I chose "Empowering developers to be their best." Microsoft's mission is to "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." That resonated with me and was a major reason I felt it would be the right choice. A few things come to mind about working with Microsoft:

• It's an organization devoted to giving and hosts events focused around employee's giving not just money, but time and expertise, to communities
• I believe Microsoft is innovating every day and is a place where you can literally ride the wave of new technology advancements
• The employees are caring, supportive, diverse, intelligent, and fun
• There are great benefits
• The teams I work with are all focused on collaborating to be productive, not competing to be active

The best part about working at Microsoft is that I literally get paid to pursue my personal mission statement and do what I've loved my entire life which is write code. The worse part is probably having to fill out expense reports, but those are a necessity wherever you go.

The past year at Microsoft has been an interesting experience to say the least. For most of my career I've been a consume of their tools and services. Now I get to see the process behind it all and meet the folks that are driving that innovation. That alone for me has been really excited to see.

I'm also very blessed to be a part of the team I'm on right now. It's a huge motivator for me to work with people that are really sharp, genuinely care about helping developers build great products, and are all around just great people to be around.

Just like any other company though, Microsoft isn't without its faults. The company is huge, there are tons of teams. You'll see that everyone doesn't always have the same goals or priorities, so you have to be able to navigate those scenarios. On top of that, my team is primarily remote which comes with its own set of challenges.

I think we're in an interesting position today because had made huge changes; many of them before I joined. Trying to prove to folks that we are listening and we are trying to be better can be challenging. This particularly true when trying to combat the stigmas of the past.

@Maxime Rouiller we love you too Max!

Developers should consider working at Microsoft because the things that were mentioned above, and also because they are interested in solving a lot of interesting problems. Because it's such a large company, it's likely there's at least one problem that a developer would find and love solving here. It's also telling that a lot of the employees stay for many years here, 10-20+ years long. My favorite thing is the ability be to remote. While not every team is set up for it, it's nice to have a work environment that works for me, and done well to where I don't feel in a vacuum. My least favorite thing is filling out forms/surveys/reports, a necessary evil, it's probably a personal problem :)