Technical Account Manager Review

Among the environments of large companies, Microsoft supposedly has no equal and, though I've never worked at a large corporation before, I'm inclined to believe it. Matrix leadership structure, flexible working hours and mobile working, free education, tangible responsibility, great company culture, exciting tech, access to great talks on the future of tech. It's been great.

It's nice to have people come to you, seeking your expertise and opinion, despite only being an intern. I was given responsibility, with real importance, implying that my capability was valued or, at least, recognised as valuable.

I had a somewhat a-typical experience as my manager went through an extended transitional period of being promoted, making it more difficult to get facetime. Despite this, I was never denied a 1:1 over a coffee whenever I needed it and always felt comfortable & allowed to speak to or instant message my supervisors regarding any kind of issue. The cooperative culture of Microsoft made getting support and guidance really easy and comfortable.

Dependant on time of year, I was either at or just above a comfortable working level but this stemmed from my eagerness to get involved with projects as they were brought to my attention, as well as starting projects of my own. I found that I had a very strong influence over my workload, allowing me to tailor it to what I felt I could handle and excel at doing.

A lot. On day one I was the incident manager for the largest account in my sector, reporting to the customer by my second day. Within a month I was presenting analytical findings to my manager's manager and by the middle of the year I had ownership over a team made up of people more senior than my manager, working on a project which would be reported on at our department's Quarterly Business Update to head office in America. Sometimes it got a bit nerve-wracking but I feel that it's much better to be thrown into the deep end and learn to swim as opposed to treading water all year.

With regard to the remainder of my studies, besides skill in prioritisation, not enormously, as the tangible application of business knowledge doesn't really feedback much expertise to the theoretical side. However, for the rest of my career, this will be one of the most helpful learning experiences I've had so far. Learning how companies work, how projects develop & succeed/fail, knowledge of etuiquette, office politics, an insight into CSR, PR and more. It's all highly valuable and will ramp me into my future career.

Whilst occasionally quiet, the atmosphere was almost always light and friendly, built around a culture of inclusivity and cooperation. My co-intern and I brought a fair amount of humour to the office, in our own way, and it was very well received, I believe, due to the diverse mix in types of folk amongst our colleagues. All around, it has been very fun and I'll miss it, certainly.

Our on-boarding wasn't too engaging or comprehensive, leading to a floor-to-ceiling re-work of the intern on-boarding process, some interns got very little access to team-building and reward events whilst others got access to a large amount and our "Mid-Year Review" was 9 months through our year, due, in part, to our intern coordinator suddenly leaving. I've very much enjoyed my intern experience but I would say that the top-down organisation of it has been it's weakest element.

We had access to thousands of pounds worth of courses and training experiences from Office Software specialisation to MTA (Technical training courses) to Change management consultancy training from a third party organisation as well as a company-supported public speaking group, as well as opportunities to speak to experts in all manner of technical fields. Microsoft appear very keen to enrich their employees to a large extent and, as an intern, you get essentially all of these opportunities open to you.

The graduate scheme involves even more training and opportunities than the intern scheme and, despite being a two year scheme, it rolls on to a full time job as standard. My mentor in the company was a second year graduate and, within my year, she was already taking on accounts belonging to senior employees. With a comfy salary, nice financial perks, extra training, opportunities to travel to Redmond and such and a great community of young career proffesionals, the Microsoft Academy for College Hires looks great.

Yes. Though I lived at home in a neighbouring town to the office, most interns lived in a series of houses close to eachother and organised regular evenings amongst them.

I don't know.

Fine.

Not enormously.