As a technical interviewer at Avanade, when I complete the technical portion of the interview, one of the most common questions that I get from prospective consultants is “What is it really like as a consultant? What is your day like?” Sometimes I get random emails from people on the web, “Hey, I am thinking about applying to Avanade, do you like it? What is your day like?” I love these kinds of questions because there really isn’t a single right answer.
Avanade is a variety of experiences and that is part why being an Avanade consultant is so great to me.
Falconic Note: This blog post is my own personal view and experience as an engineer at Avanade. This blog post is not endorsed by Avanade nor should it be construed as making a statement in any official capacity for Avanade. The views expressed in this blog post are my own. Nothing in this blog post should be construed to constitute an offer of employment or a supplement to any existing or future offer.
I totally welcome emails with questions about Avanade. For obvious legal and HR reasons, there are some things I just can’t talk about but I am more than happy to field questions about why Avanade really is an awesome place to work for a Microsoft technologist.
Feel free to drop me an email at wayne.anderson@avanade.com . If I cannot answer the question, I can point you towards one of our recruiters who might be able to talk with you a little more about opportunities at Avanade.
Consulting for Avanade changes a bit depending on the project that you happen to be working on. There are really 4 “main” scenarios that you will encounter for your work at Avanade.
- Working on a Customer Project On-Site (Out of Town)
- Working on a Customer Project On-Site (In-Town)
- Working on a Customer Project Remote (@ Home)
- “On the Bench” (@ Home)
Let’s have a look, shall we?
Working on a Customer Project On-Site (Out of Town)
Only slightly less frequently asked in an interview is the question, “how often do you travel, really?”
With the caveat that this is my experience only, and that your experience will vary, the company line is “up to 100% travel”, do not use within reach of children, caution: contents may be hot, etc, the average that I see is about 70% of the time. This varies based on the location that you are based out of. Being based out of a very large city where we have a thriving practice in the US or Overseas can bring down your travel. Being based out of a smaller city with plentiful competition like Denver, CO, can push your travel percentage upwards.
At any rate, when you are traveling on a customer engagement, Avanade uses a model where on an engagement in the same country, you will travel home every weekend. The engagement will either be a travel Sunday night to Thursday morning, Monday morning to Friday afternoon, or on a few engagements, travel Sunday night to Friday midday. This means that you have at least most of the weekend with family, and the other part of the week you are on a customer site.
At the same time, we have a commitment to the customer to be putting in a standard work week. Thus, while at the customer location, generally you can expect a 9 to 10 hour day.
One of the other questions I hear a lot is, “will I be out of town on a project by myself?” Most of the time, the answer is no. There are very few projects that I personally have experience with where an Avanade consultant is working solo on a project for which they are traveling. Usually we are there in one of three scenarios.
1) Working as a fully integrated Avanade team with the customer.
2) Working in concert with some Avanade, some Accenture.
3) Working with some Avanade, some Microsoft.
In any of these cases, you almost always have “friendlies” for which you are part of the project team that you will be working with. Most of the time, there are lunch groups and various casual dinners available that you can be a part of. One of the nice things about everyone on a project traveling (or even most of everyone on the project), is that those other people are on per diem too and are going to be looking for some socialization time in the evenings as well.
Without going too far, I can safely say that I have seen the inside of innumerable bars and restaurants with Avanade colleagues. Avanade unequivocally believes in safe and professional conduct but within those guidelines of conducting yourself appropriately, there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy the hospitality of a city that you might not otherwise experience.
Working on a Customer Project On-Site (In Town)
Sometimes, particularly if you are based out of one of our larger cities, like LA and Seattle in the US, you will be placed on projects local to the home city that you are based out of. When these kinds of opportunities come up, you will have a steady commuting schedule just like going into the office for any other job. The only difference in consulting is sometimes we have a tendency to require a few after-hours work hours from you in order to be able to take part in the types of migration/installation/testing that we do outside of the customer’s business hours.
Despite the small request of some additional hours to facilitate after-work testing/install/migration (which can be mitigated by adjusting start times during the affected period on the project schedule), in-town work is by far the preferred work arrangement for many consultants because you are back home with your family every night.
Working on a Customer Project Remotely (@ Home)
Remote work is the kind of work we all like to have but tends not to be available as often as one would hope. Remote work allows us to save a customer money by saving on travel expenses but also requires that the customer places a certain degree of trust in our consultants being able to connect to the customer resources remotely through a VPN or other type of arrangement. For this reason, some customers opt to pay for the onsite consulting that is the mainstay of our business.
In development projects, the remote work tends to be more available as many of the projects we engage on do not require the full and prolonged presence of the entire project team, instead providing ways for them to check in code and attend meetings remotely. If you are a developer, you will find that your travel is rather more balanced as many of our customers offer more opportunity to save costs by coding remotely in a TS environment, allowing remote check in to code control systems, and other methods of remote work while maintaining appropriate control of the work product.
Even though working from home for the length of a project for months at a time sounds really cool, the honest fact of the matter is that it takes focus to be able to really bring your skills to bear on a project. For those that have families, this can be particularly difficult as our tendencies as husbands and fathers is to spend the time that we have with them as much as we can.
I recommend to anyone who gets involved as a consultant to count on having some portion of time at home working on projects and working on the bench. If you can, set up an office area. Your office should, at the very least, be a bedroom or basement area, or otherwise dedicated space where you can close the door and maintain quiet that semi-isolates you from the animals, children, etc that each of our homes maintain.
“On the Bench” (@ Home)
Another common question that I hear a lot is, “If I am not working for a customer, am I still getting paid?” This is particularly true from folks that have work for other consulting companies that may or may not do that. When you work for Avanade as a full-time technical consultant, Avanade maintains a “bench” which is the resource pool in a given region which is immediately available for projects.
When you are on the bench, your job is to go out and sharpen your skills to get back in the field. This often entails working on your certification. Avanade not only supports certification, but up until the project lead levels, Avanade requires it! Provide resources to study with and vouchers to take the exams. We provide the resources for it. It’s in Avanade’s interest to make sure that you are fully credentialed and trained to succeed on current and next-generation technologies from Microsoft.
Your time on the bench is in the anticipation that you will use it to further your formal training and experience on the technologies you work with, certifying it with credentials from Microsoft.
Consulting at Avanade offers Variety
Avanade offers every one of its consultants the opportunity to build their own training and experience to develop themselves. You are in the driver’s seat for your career. Want to certify? The resources are there and available. Want to be a project manager? You can work with our Global Learning department and your region to build a career path and map out the steps you need to take to meet the competencies to be in that role. Want to be an expert? The learning team can help you figure out the experience and training you need to work towards an architecture role.
I came to Avanade from IBM Global Services because I wanted a job that would grow me along with the business. I wanted a job where I could be working on something different every 3-4 months. I wanted a job where the management chain was as much about supporting me in building my capability and customer management skills as it was in putting me in front of customers. I wanted a job where I was working with people who knew more about the technologies I work with than I do.
Avanade provided that opportunity for me.
If Avanade sounds like something you might be interested in, you have a passion for technology and constantly training and building your experience, and don’t mind some travel, check out some of the job postings the recruiting team has put up on the corporate homepage at www.avanade.com, there might be something there that fits what you are looking for.
Falconic Note: This blog post is my own personal view and experience as an engineer at Avanade. This blog post is not endorsed by Avanade nor should it be construed as making a statement in any official capacity for Avanade. The views expressed in this blog post are my own. Nothing in this blog post should be construed to constitute an offer of employment or a supplement to any existing or future offer.
Information about consulting, training, and certification activities that Avanade consultants engage in is current as of the time of this writing and may be subject to change.