Starting a new job at an MSP can feel like stepping into a whirlwind of acronyms, ticket queues, and a toolset that might as well be written in an alien language. As a former MSP owner, I’d like to tell you it was all smooth sailing for my new hires—but that would be a bold-faced lie. I’ve made my fair share of onboarding mistakes. Once, I handed a new hire a huge SOP “onboarding” document on day two and said, “This will explain everything.” Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Another time, I forgot to provide a junior tech with admin credentials before assigning them a ticket to “troubleshoot a firewall.” They spent hours Googling instead of realizing they were locked out. So, take it from someone who learned the hard way—getting started at an MSP can be tough, but it doesn’t have to be chaotic. With the right approach, you can hit the ground running without tripping over the first password reset ticket.
Your First Day in the MSP Trenches
Congratulations, you’ve officially joined the crazy world of Managed Services! Your first day is all about introductions, onboarding, and trying not to let your brain explode from all the new information. You’ll meet a mix of coworkers: some will be welcoming and others will silently judge your ability to keep the printer running.
Expect to feel overwhelmed—it’s normal. When I owned my MSP, I once threw a new hire into shadowing a Tier 2 tech without properly explaining what the job entailed. The poor guy spent half the day wondering if he’d been hired as an IT janitor because we made him clean up the documentation backlog. Not my proudest moment. To avoid this kind of confusion, ask questions. Lots of them.
Here’s a survival tip: take notes. Everything. You won’t remember all the acronyms thrown at you (RMM, PSA, SLA—these could be secret codes for all you know), so jot them down. And if you’re not keeping up, speak up. I promise, your boss would rather slow things down than have you staring blankly at the screen when a senior tech says, “Just escalate it with the proper ticket prefix.” Translation: “I have no idea what that means either.”
If you’re still feeling lost by the end of the day, don’t panic. Your goal is to absorb, not master. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are great MSP techs.
Your First Week: Settling Into the Madness
By now, you’ve likely learned the names of a few coworkers and which one always eats the last donut in the breakroom. More importantly, you’ve started tackling your first tickets. These will probably be low-priority ones like resetting a password for someone who swears their account locked itself (spoiler: it didn’t).
The first week is when the real learning curve begins. You’ll get a crash course on the MSP’s tools and processes, and if your manager is anything like I was, they might forget to pace things. Once, I handed a new hire the company’s entire 50-page SOP document on day two. It was meant to help them, but I might as well have handed them a book titled How to Feel Overwhelmed in Three Easy Steps.
If you feel like you’re drowning, don’t suffer in silence. Find a moment with your manager or team lead and let them know where you’re struggling. The good ones will adjust your training pace. The bad ones will tell you, “You’ll figure it out,” and that’s your cue to start Googling everything.
Also, get comfortable with documentation. In MSP land, if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen. Your future self (and coworkers) will thank you when you write clear ticket notes. This week, you’re aiming to go from “newbie” to “knows where the snacks are and how to reset a router.” Progress!
Your First Month: Building Momentum
Ah, the one-month mark. By now, you’re starting to feel less like a deer in headlights and more like a deer who at least knows where the headlights are coming from. You’ve handled more tickets, shadowed senior techs, and maybe even escalated an issue or two without breaking a sweat.
This is also the time when imposter syndrome might rear its ugly head. You might think, “Why can’t I troubleshoot as fast as that Tier 3 wizard?” Let me stop you right there. That wizard has been in the trenches for years and probably broke their fair share of servers along the way. Give yourself time to grow.
When I hired techs, I sometimes made the mistake of assuming they’d pick up complex processes without much guidance. For example, I once assigned a new hire a network troubleshooting ticket without realizing they’d never seen our monitoring tools in action. The result? A five-hour saga of “Why isn’t the firewall logging in?” because I forgot to give them the admin password. Lesson learned: always over-communicate.
If you feel like you’re falling behind, make a list of the areas where you’re struggling and schedule time with your manager or a senior tech to address them. Most managers want you to succeed—it makes their lives easier if you’re confident and capable. And if they’re too busy, lean on your teammates.
At this stage, your focus should be on mastering the basics. Understand how tickets flow, keep up with documentation, and slowly get comfortable with the MSP’s core toolset. Remember, you’re not expected to be a Tier 3 hero by now; you’re expected to know how to solve common issues without burning down the network.
P.S. I wrote a companion article to help you determine if you’ve made a huge mistake in joining your MSP.
