Technical Solutions Professional Review

Working for Microsoft provided an insight into the world of work that has proven to be invaluable to my growth. As my placement allowed me to explore multiple industries in both the public and private sector, I was able to obtain a greater understanding of many important industries. Being part of a large intern cohort also allowed me to grow and learn from others. I met a lot of fellow interns from all sorts of different backgrounds and knowledge areas.

One fantastic part about the internship was how I was able to interact with my team. Being in my role takes a lot of experience and subject knowledge to perform well so my team would make sure to include me in as much as possible to gain this experience. The more capable I became in role, the more responsibility was put upon me by my colleagues. It was a great feeling knowing that various team members had enough trust in me to get projects over the line.

I wouldn't be where I am without my manager. She made sure that we put in regular hours in each others calendars to ensure I was on track with my goals and responsibilities. Being apart of an organisation the size of Microsoft can be overwhelming for an intern and my manager knew this and made sure I had enough room to make myself comfortable in this new environment.

Every day was different. As time went on I took on more projects and responsibility which inevitably made me very busy. However there was enough down time to catch up on emails and training and plenty of time to get a good lunch in. I would say there were very few moments when the busyness would be overwhelming.

As mentioned earlier, the amount of responsibility grew as my skills and knowledge grew. Success in my role heavily depended on how much experience you had so being brand new into role would be more challenging than a senior hire. However, I feel the right amount of responsibility was put on me.

I have a very technical degree. Within my placement, I learned an incredible amount of different technologies and their importance in industries. This has greatly impacted my studies already as my knowledge of the application of technologies has greatly increased. One area that has greatly benefited the placement is my dissertation, which conveniently requires technical knowledge in a lot of the areas I skilled up in during my placement.

The atmosphere in the office when busy was great. Often, colleagues from other teams would be able to find you and ask if you want to join in projects with them, which allowed you to expand your connections. However, due to the nature of the role meaning people were working out of office a lot, it could often be quite empty.

For a placement that had never had an intern in my role, the team made a strong effort to make sure we had the best experience we could. The nature of the role meant the full-time role was a bit different to the intern version but it didn't mean we were able to make large contributions to the team. With our feedback, we were able to improve on the organisation of the work placement during the second half of the year.

At Microsoft, you are able to take exams to increase your knowledge on particular areas. These would usually cost a lot of money for non-employees but for us they were free. Additionally, the intern cohort partook on many organised events that were made to improve our soft skills. I'd say Microsoft had invested a lot of money to skill us up as much as possible.

Very good considering I'll be returning to Microsoft after my degree

Absolutely. We had a very large cohort of interns and we had many socials where we would be able to go out and attend many different events and activities. We also had an internal team made up of interns who would organise these events, which were extremely well done. As well as the interns, we also had a large group of apprentices and graduates so we were never short on people.

We managed to get a fantastic house near work for roughly the same price as uni accommodation, which was a properly family home in a cul de sac. These definitely contributed to a working vibe. Whilst we went for a slightly more expensive house (although still rather cheap), a lot of the interns managed to find very good and inexpensive housing with good bus routes into the town centre.

The nightlife was very average where I worked. There are definitely better towns and cities out there.

I was apart of and competing for a lot of different societies at the local uni, which ended up being what I spent doing with most of my spare time. Work-life balance was good enough for me to do these consistently, which means a lot to me as these were some of the best memories I made last year outside of work.