Not sure if any people can relate, but I feel like I got tricked into a billing support role at my company, which is feeling more and more like a "call center" job after our case volume went up during the pandemic. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft is a top company, but I can't help but feel deceived after I was initially recruited as part of their college hires program last year. It was junior year back in 2018 and a Microsoft recruiter direct messaged me on LinkedIn about an awesome opportunity to join the Microsoft Academy of College Hires (MACH), which is now known as the Microsoft Aspire program. I was super excited and we had phone interview and then they flew me in for on-site interview, which was all a great experience. Not once did they mention that this would be a "call center" kind of job. It was only when I accepted the offer and finished the onboarding did I find out I got placed on the billing subscription support team. This opened my eyes to the reality on how little they cared about the candidate's well-being. I was especially frustrated to only find out about my actual role after 3 weeks already at the company. Like seriously! I was not even asked about my preferences and just got placed into billing support job :( I don't think I would have taken the offer if I knew I was going to be "the billing support guy" at the company. No disrespect to my colleagues who work on this team, but it has been absolute hell ever since I completed the training and put on the queue for customer calls. It has just been non-stop customer complaints and accumulating caseload day-in-day out, including night and weekend shifts. We keep getting reminder about customer satisfaction and blah blah blah but my mental health is really suffering here. I really did not expect such a bad experience and really don't think I will work in a customer support job again. My friend who also got tricked into customer support role told me about Blind and I decided to join so that I can vent and share about my experience here. I think I will look for career change soon and would appreciate any advice on how to get out of billing support. For anyone in a similar situation, I strongly advise asking clarity about the role and team you're applying for before accepting any offers. This was also partially my mistake for not asking clearly during the interviews. I am now looking for UX/UI design and front-end web developer roles. Any help to get me through this difficult time is greatly appreciated. -- Edit/update (5/1/21): I interviewed and accepted a L60 offer to join the Azure Identity team as a Content Developer 2! Tc: 102k base / Hoping for better things ahead :) #burnout #depression #mentalhealth
What’s your title? Software Engineer?
It was originally titled MACH (as in the college hire program) on Teams but on my 3rd week it got changed to "support engineer" and I got placed on billing team
Hmm I’m not familiar with the MACH program, but if you were expecting a SWE role, I’d suggest switch teams and find a different position ASAP.
Seems weird. Why does MSFT want to spend all this extra money filling call center positions? What is the benefit to them?
TC please? 150k?
Undergrad in CS?
I did a minor in CS but I majored in digital marketing, so customer support really caught me off-guard as my first full-time job
Spoken like a true digital marketing graduate.
What were your interviews like? The rounds are a reflection of your role in many ways.
To my surprise, the interviews went really well, but all my interviewers work on different teams or departments. None of them were from billing support so it really caught me off guard when HR told me about my role on billing support three weeks into the college hires program. I feel the lack of transparency is what really frustrates me and makes me want to quit my role here and move on to a better position.
WAIT! You just flew to give an interview and you did not ask about the role or anything?? LOL
This is a pretty common experience for college hires who are just put into random teams without getting their interests into account and then you have a whole bunch of hires who won't be putting their 100 percent into the job and would spend their time leetcoding to move internally or get out of the company. Role clarity, technical trainings, how promos happen nothing is informed.
Exactly
I had given all this as feedback in the different polls. I really like Microsoft Aspire program and it's focus on soft skills. But they need to take all of the other things surrounding just 'company culture' into account as well if they really want to help college hires.
Dm for SAP if u find positions on UI/UX
Thank you and will do! I'll be on the lookout for any suitable roles at SAP :)
Don’t lose heart. Leetcode your way out of it
Thanks for the encouragement. Do you think leetcode is sufficient preparation for technical interviews or should I sign up for a CS bootcamp too?
Leetcode is enough, start with it and you will get the idea of how deep leetcode is and how long it takes to prepare
90k