We’ve all wondered what it’s like to work at one of the largest technology companies in the world. Microsoft offers millions of jobs globally where many come and go. But Colleen O’Brien of Microsoft’s marketing department has found herself one of the few of her Microsoft Academy of College Hires class that is still with the company. After hitting her five-year anniversary earlier this summer, she decided to write about the top 10 experiences that made her truly feel thankful for her job.
It’s safe to say that according to her memoir, Colleen has gotten around in the company in just five years. Her experiences include sponsoring a Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as well as maintaining a podcast for Microsoft’s annual Hackathon called Achieve More. In fact, it was largely in part to Microsoft that she was able to further her education and graduate from University of Washington’s Foster School of Business Masters program thanks to the company’s tuition reimbursement perk paying 35% of the costs.
The blog post moves from moment to moment of Colleen’s professional life as she recounts interviewing Chris Capossela taking a trip to visit the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit to learn more about cyber security and exposure, and taking part in Microsoft’s philanthropic campaigns by visiting non-profits to understand how Microsoft can help change their communities for the better.
One of the more pivotal accomplishments that Colleen was able to have her hands in was the update to the Microsoft Services Agreement and Privacy Statement. The veteran wrote about how she was assigned to lead the communications strategy and was overwhelmed with the scope of it all. “While I had worked on scaled communications before, I didn’t really comprehend the size of Microsoft or our customer base until working on this project,” the blog post reads.
The article is an excellent read for a more personal perspective of what five years can look like in a large corporation like Microsoft. Read the full post on Colleen’s Medium profile.
