Arrrrrrr, ye swarthy land lubbers. Come set sail with your pirate captain, the Dread Pirate Jim and his pirate crew as we set sail on the seven seas to find the finest treasure in the land – knowledge!

In this series our trusty pirates set sail on the Sea of Thieves, and share their galleon with a range of special guests from across the tech industry. Each episode will mix sharing tales of tech quests large and small to pass the time whilst we sail, with intense piratical action as we try to claim treasure. This is the only series from the Microsoft Reactor where you can both learn how folks have achieved greatness in their fields, whilst watching how good or terrible they are at video games. So come join our crew, bring your questions for our guests, and let's all #BeMorePirate!

In this episode:

Every good pirate in training takes time to sail with a crew, before committing to a captain once their training is complete. Students are the same – doing internships to try out companies and jobs before they commit to their first graduate role.

For this session, our crew is joined by a couple of young pirates who interned at Microsoft in different ways before taking graduate roles with the company. Tessa Wiedmann started as an engineer, but being a former Student Ambassador jumped at the chance to help grow this program! Gustavo Cordido joined under more locked down circumstances, doing a virtual internship at the start of the pandemic. That experience didn’t put him off a life on the ocean waves, and he joined Microsoft as a developer advocate when he graduated.

As these fresh-faced pirates help us find where X marks the spot and dig for buried treasure, we will be discussing tech internships, what students are looking for in an internship experience and how tech companies can support them. We will also be exchanging tales of graduate recruitment, interview panels and what fun activities Microsoft had in store for them both as interns.

Speakers:
Jim Bennett, Regional Cloud Advocate, Microsoft
Jim is a Regional Cloud Advocate focusing on building out and skilling communities in the Pacific Northwest, with a focus on the Microsoft Reactor in Redmond, Washington. He’s British, so sounds way smarter than he actually is, and is happy he moved to Redmond in time to be locked down at home and not see the office he came to work in, or the places he wanted to visit. In the past he’s lived in 4 continents working as a developer in the mobile, desktop, and scientific space. He's spoken at conferences and events all around the globe, organized meetup groups and communities, and written a book on mobile development.

Tessa Wiedmann, Software Engineer, Microsoft
Tessa is a Program Manager who helps run the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador and Imagine Cup programs. Her journey to Microsoft included being an intern twice, and even being a Student Ambassador. She joined Microsoft full time after graduation from the University of Cincinnati about 3 years ago now, and has been working as a Software Engineer on one of the Microsoft Education teams until switching over to Program Management a few weeks ago.
She currently lives in Seattle, but is moving to Amsterdam, the Netherlands next week! In her free time, she loves photography, making little videos for her friends and family, hanging out with any and all cats, and exploring nature🌲🗻🌷

Gustavo Cordido, Cloud Advocate, Microsoft