Why I (didn’t) choose the PM position

I learnt about the Microsoft internship through my school co-op program, and went to apply online. There were 3 options to choose from, Software Developer Engineer (SDE), Software Developer Engineer in Test (SDET) and Program Manager (PM). By the descriptions, they were all great positions and I would be lucky to have any of them. So I started thinking about how I was going to rank my choices. After re-reading the options a couple of times, it didn’t seem like the PM position could be an entry level position, let alone an internship position. Now SDE and SDET were the typical positions we had learnt about in school and I figured my resume was more geared to these positions. Making my decision, I ranked my position choices as (1) SDE, (2) SDET and finally, (3) PM.

[Sneak-peek] - what’s in this post?

1. My experience with the application process at Microsoft
2. How this experience fits into my current career plan

 

1. When I applied for the Microsoft internship program, for my 3rd out of 5 co-op terms, I figured I wouldn’t be successful this time. In fact I knew most people try to get a Microsoft internship on their last work term before graduating hoping to get a full time position offer. I applied early because I wanted to give it a try the first time, get my name out, maybe get a phone interview, and if it didn’t work out well I had 2 more co-op terms and school in between to improve. All this over-planning wasn’t necessary though because after I sent in my application, I met the recruiter and ended up getting a phone interview.

During my phone interview, after talking for a bit, the recruiter asked why I had listed the PM position as my last option. Slightly taken aback, I explained that I didn’t think that position was available for an internship – in fact I didn’t really understand the position anyway. As he gave me his description of the position, I realized that what he was describing I was already doing in my current group projects. As I began to give him examples of what I was doing in school/work and how I thought that matched this position description. After a couple of examples, he suggested I interview for the PM position instead of my original pick of a SDE. I agreed (of course), and began researching this unique position within Microsoft.

Things flew by after that – a trip to Redmond, a full day interview, a trip back home and an internship offer before I got home from the airport. Next thing I know, I am half way through a 4 month internship writing a blog about the whole experience (and in case you haven’t read my other posts, I’m really enjoying it!). Now that I’ve shared the start to my internship, what about yours? Post a comment about your internship experience – good or bad!

2. I’m the type of person that has a plan. Before graduating high school, I knew I would pursue a degree in engineering (was a little foggy on which discipline) and knew I would enroll in the co-op program. I knew I would keep working another job during the school year to ensure I wouldn’t need a student loan.

Based on what I knew, had heard and found out about this industry, I laid out my career plan accordingly. I figured I would start testing software, as this is what I spent my first internship doing. As I start getting better at finding bugs, I would get to start fixing them. After fixing these bugs, I expected to start contributing to the design of the software I had been testing and fixing. After contributing to the design projects, I would begin working with the various stakeholders and other people involved. After having reached higher levels of responsibilities in all aspects of the project, I would expect to have a greater influence over the entire process. At this stage, I would have reached my ideal position. At this position, I get to work with people from different disciplines towards a common goal of our projects, while coordinating cooperation amongst the team members.

I figured that would plan would take a while. 5-10 years was the range I was aiming for. But that whole process doesn’t have to take years. As an entry level PM, you may not have large amounts of responsibility but you are immediately building your leadership and organizational skills. The work that I am doing right now, is what I could see myself doing in my 5-10 year plan.  Pretty cool eh? It’s kind of like someone pushed fast-forward on my next couple of years, and that’s ok with me :)

[Thanks to] my mentor- for the idea to write this post after I accidentally talked about it in our sync up meeting. comments/suggestions from readers – for the idea to change the format to make it a little easier to read!

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 27, 2010
  Great work here, kiddo.  Here's a perspective from the other side of the desk ... In 1997/8, I was running a Database Marketing department at 'the phone company'.  We were responsible to track and publish all the marketing metrics, and produced the targeted mail/email/call centre lists for all of our Customer Marketing activities.  (That's a cool job too ... applied math ... using statistical regression/neural nets over a data warehouse to maximize/prioritize the return on marketing investments.  And it works too!). Anyway, there was this kid doing his MBA at BCIT and writing a thesis titled something like 'Using Predictive techniques to Maximize the Return on Marketing Investments'.  (Silly concept, I know, but again, it actually does work and you CAN do it.)   This kid came to me for work experience only and didn't even expect to get paid for his work. So I apologized profusely, and told him that I'd have to pay him regular wages for the term and, if he couldn't handle that, well then he'd just have to find someplace else to work. He, of course, saw the that the opportunity to serve the good shareholders of the, um, 'phone company' was too good to refuse and, having carefully considered his other options, decided that the best path forward to support his own career plans was to take the money ... I sent him for training and we were using his predictive models in live marketing campaigns about 6 weeks later.  So it was a pretty good gig for us too ... ;-) So here's a question: How many internships aren't paid?   I'm thinking that it's ridiculous that you wouldn't get paid for doing work of real value for any company, regardless how much work experience you add to your resume.  It's really just greedy business types taking advantage of students' inexperience.  When I was a coop out of Waterloo, we wouldn't have even considered an unpaid internship, regardless of whether it was IBM ... or even Microsoft.  But they both pay ... Keep 'em coming, kid.  Love the show!