Does Msft have frequent layoff ? Is it a good option to join Msft ( I have heard they have a lot of internal politics )
Tell me of a software company that does not have politics. I've been in start up, medium and large companies. All have politics. Recruiters who tell you start ups don't are either ostriches or straight lying. Founders circle is full of it. Layoffs have happened for good reason realigning with the company core business : doing software, with the best of breed techniques. As such, software test execution became obsolete, so later did software engineers in test, then infrastructure engineers (outside azure data centers), more recently operation engineers, or whatever was the discipline name for pseudo PMs with no understanding of programming. As said above, if you are a software engineer you are fine because software is what Microsoft does.
The politics at Microsoft are far worse than most places though. They arose because of the forced stack ranking where some %of people would get shafted - in a company where most people are good, politics is a way to avoid that fate. Officially, that has been gone for awhile, but unofficially it’s part of Microsoft’s DNA and old habits die hard.
Agree there is still a ranking but the messaging is more about what percentage of your level expectation did you achieve.. How does Amazon rank employees for compensation?
Layoffs are regular since Satya became the CEO. Quarterly layoffs somewhere or the other are the new normal.
Thinking about joining Microsoft. Is Pip common like Amazon?
Find a good team and you are set. Their constant layoff mainly impacted sales people and devops type. As long as you are a SWE. You are good.
Msft still has unexpected layoffs of Dev. A principal friend got laid off along with 100s a year ago.
Just like any company ever. My point is if you are a dev you won't have to fear about it. Every company has layoff Microsoft excessively layoff no dev positions.