Originally Posted by
dcpatti
To expand on the technical service: onsite software engineers. Almost every vendor has them at the enterprise (I.e. Not consumer) level, if the customer is willing to pay. Microsoft calls them ROSS ( Rapid Onsite Support Services) Engineers. I do a similar job for my employer. A lot of the travel is last-minute which can be painful at times, but given the revenue we generate, my team is largely exempt from a lot of the corporate per diem/preferred airline/preferred hotel rules.
I travel between 20-40%.
I run a team that does exactly this (Not for Microsoft, fortunately...). Customers who spend millions of dollars have this odd expectation that things will be fixed immediately when they crash and burn, thus my folks are all on stand-by to travel at a moment's notice. I spend the majority of my time bouncing between 3 corporate offices (SJC, PHX, and DEN) and meeting with strategic customers and vendors.