Ever wondered what it’s like working at a managed service provider? Well, you’ve come to the right place. We sat down with a few members of our crew and asked them about their experience working at an MSP, so you can hear exactly what it’s like, straight from the people who live it every day.

A Little Bit About Managed Service Providers – or MSP’s

If you’re new around here, you might be wondering exactly what an MSP does. In a nutshell, managed services providers, like us, act as the outsourced IT department for our clients.

That means that for our fully-managed clients, we take care of pretty much every IT-related need for them – from designing the right technology infrastructure for their specific organization, to proactively maintaining the health of those systems, and jumping in to help with any IT problems that might pop up.

In addition to providing “the whole meal deal”, we also offer a broad range of other services to act as a force multiplier for organizations who handle their IT in-house, such as backup IT services, managed network services, and IT project implementation.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s get down to it. We asked a handful of Portland Internetworks teammates about their experience working at an MSP, and here’s what they said:

Question 1: Describe your typical workday.

“My typical workday starts off with a cup of coffee, of course. Next would be diving into our ConnectWise calendar, which has our tickets for the day. My job is to work through the calendar ensuring that all clients’ needs are met and that I tackle any technical issue to the best of my abilities. I may not know all the answers, but that’s okay being that I work extremely close with our team to help achieve our goals.” – Andy C., Senior IT Service Technician, Infrastructure Team

“A typical day for me is usually busy. Our dispatcher does a great job of keeping my busy when I am not working on projects. If I am not working on setting up a new server for a client, I am calling clients to help with their day-to-day problems. Anything from ‘I can’t print’ to ‘my computer is crashing’.” – Alec, Systems Engineer, Project Team

Question 2:  How is working at an MSP different than previous roles that you’ve had?

“Working at an MSP is different than a previous role as it much more accelerated. A high paced work environment has it challenges, but it also has its rewards. I can reflect and look back at the knowledge that I have gained, and I would not change a thing.” – Andy C., Senior IT Service Technician, Infrastructure Team

“Lots more diversity and roles. There’s room for growth and opportunities that didn’t exist before.” – Davis, Senior IT Service Technician, Helpdesk Team

“MSP’s are more focused on the client experience of the service that we deliver than in-house IT, which is typically a department that is treated as a cost center.” – Eric, Systems Engineer, Helpdesk Team

Question 3: What do you enjoy most about working at an MSP?

“At previous roles I found myself bored, which led to clock watching and waiting until I could clock out. Working at an MSP, the days go by extremely fast as there is so much to learn. Since Portland Internetworks works alongside clients with similar cultures and values, I find job satisfaction through interacting with our clients daily.” – Andy C., Senior IT Service Technician, Infrastructure Team

“You get to solve a wide range of problems due to the nature of managing so many different types of environments.” – Eric, Systems Engineer, Helpdesk Team

“I love having a team to work with. Working in IT, there is always something new to learn and sometimes, you just don’t have the answer. It’s great to be able to have someone else that can give you an extra set of eyes.”  – Alec, Systems Engineer, Project Team

“The technical world is fairly vast and, so long as there are computers involved, it keeps it very interesting and rarely becomes boring due to the constant changes in the technologies being used.” – Greg, Client Account Manager

“There’s always something broken, somewhere.” – Raymond, Senior IT Systems Engineer

Question 4: What advice would you give to someone searching for their first MSP job?

“The MSP environment is a great job for advancing your skill-set by breadth and depth.  There will always be a project on the horizon or a challenging ticket in the queue.  There is no shortage of work and there is always something new to learn.  Problems you’ve solved one way can also be solved in a different way depending on the complexity of the situation.  Having multiple clients can lead to exploring environments that you never considered to approach or knew had a big IT footprint.” – Davis, Senior IT Service Technician, Helpdesk Team

“MSP’s are a great place to learn and refine your abilities.” – Alec, Systems Engineer, Project Team

“If you love working with several different technologies and like working with clients who are in a variety of fields, maybe look at an MSP gig.” -Andy C., Senior IT Service Technician, Infrastructure Team

Question 5: What advice would you give to someone applying for a role at Portland Internetworks?

“Great group of people to work with and everyone is friendly, professional, and willing to help you learn every aspect of your job.  You also need to have personal ambition to learn and discover things on your own. There’s lots of fun side-benefits in the office and outside of the office. We do like having fun.” – Davis, Senior IT Service Technician, Helpdesk Team

“Culture fit is more valued here than at your average place. We spend a great deal of time working together, so we value smart people who are interested and interesting – more than just what your resume says.” – Eric, Systems Engineer, Helpdesk Team

“Do it. Everyone here is amazing and dedicated to their job.” – Alec, Systems Engineer, Project Team

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If this sounds like your kind of place, we’d love to chat with you. We’re hiring for multiple positions on our service team, from level 1 technician all the way up the ranks to engineer. To learn more about our open opportunities and working at Portland Internetworks, head over to our Careers page. We can’t wait to meet you!