If you work at a company are you allowed to own stock of it outside of RSUs?

Yes, provided you are not purchasing them outside SEC-mandated insider blackout periods (if applicable). I'm not sure what the insider classification rules are at microsoft. This may not apply to your position.

At Google, every engineer is classified as an insider and we are disallowed from purchasing/selling company stock within the blackout windows (typically ~2 weeks surrounding key financial reporting deadlines). There are a few consequences of this, chiefly stock cannot be considered as collateral for a loan.

Also, it probably won't be relevant for a while, but you'll probably be subject to lot liquidation limits. For example, I'm unable to liquidate more than (iirc) $4M worth of stock in a single trading day without management approval first.

Lastly, you may be disqualified from shorting your company's stock.

/r/cscareerquestions Thread