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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for User Account Intern

💰 $15/hr - $25/hr

InternshipCustomer SupportOperationsIdentity & Access ManagementIT

🎯 Role Definition

The User Account Intern serves as the front-line operator for user account lifecycle management, identity verification, and access provisioning in support of customer success, security, and IT operations. This role focuses on onboarding and offboarding users, troubleshooting access issues (password resets, MFA, SSO), processing requests in ticketing systems (Zendesk, ServiceNow), maintaining accurate account records in CRM and directory services (Salesforce, Active Directory, Okta), and supporting audits and compliance activities. Ideal candidates are detail-oriented, service-minded, and eager to learn IAM best practices and operational workflows.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • University students or recent graduates pursuing a degree in IT, Business, or related fields
  • Part-time customer service or helpdesk roles transitioning to technical operations
  • Short-term internship or co-op programs in support or operations teams

Advancement To:

  • User Account Specialist / Account Operations Associate
  • Junior Identity & Access Management (IAM) Analyst
  • Customer Success Representative or Onboarding Specialist
  • IT Support / Helpdesk Technician

Lateral Moves:

  • Technical Support Intern
  • Compliance or Risk Management Intern
  • CRM / Data Operations Intern

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Manage the end-to-end user account lifecycle by creating, modifying, suspending, and deactivating user accounts across core systems (Active Directory, Azure AD, Okta, Google Workspace, internal CRMs) while maintaining strict adherence to documented onboarding/offboarding procedures and security policies.
  • Verify identity and eligibility for new accounts by conducting KYC-style checks and cross-referencing customer or employee records against CRM and HR data, ensuring data integrity and fraud prevention.
  • Respond to inbound account-related support tickets (password resets, MFA issues, SSO failures, locked accounts) via ticketing platforms (Zendesk, ServiceNow), diagnosing root causes and providing clear step-by-step resolutions within SLA targets.
  • Process access requests and role changes by evaluating role-based access control (RBAC) requests, validating approvals from managers, and applying least-privilege principles when granting or revoking permissions.
  • Assist with multi-factor authentication (MFA) enrollment and troubleshooting for users, including device registration, authenticator app setup, and recovery flows to reduce authentication friction and support adoption.
  • Maintain and update detailed account documentation, runbooks, and knowledge base articles to ensure consistent handoffs and scalable account operations for future interns and permanent staff.
  • Escalate complex access incidents and suspected security issues to the IAM or Security Operations team, providing detailed incident notes, timelines, and reproduction steps to accelerate remediation.
  • Perform routine account audits and reconciliations to detect orphaned accounts, privilege creep, and inactive users, and execute remediation plans in coordination with managers and system owners.
  • Configure and maintain standard user profiles and templates to streamline provisioning for common roles and departments, improving onboarding efficiency and minimizing manual errors.
  • Run scheduled and ad-hoc queries (basic SQL or CRM reporting tools) to extract account, usage, and ticket metrics for operational dashboards and weekly performance reports.
  • Support billing and subscription account updates by validating billing contacts, updating payment-related account fields, and coordinating with billing or finance teams on prorations and upgrades.
  • Facilitate cross-functional onboarding tasks for new hires or customers by coordinating account creation across multiple systems, communicating timelines, and confirming successful access through follow-up checks.
  • Participate in periodic audits for compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI where applicable) by preparing account access logs, generating user activity reports, and remediating findings under manager guidance.
  • Maintain an organized log of manual interventions (password resets, manual account unlocks) including rationale and owner to support process improvement and auditability.
  • Contribute to automation initiatives by documenting repetitive workflows, validating automated provisioning scripts, and testing sandbox environments under senior engineer supervision.
  • Provide first-level training and coaching to new users on account security best practices (password hygiene, MFA usage, recognizing phishing), reducing helpdesk volume and improving security posture.
  • Collaborate with Customer Success and Product teams to triage account-related bugs, reproduce access issues, and verify fixes in staging and production environments.
  • Assist in data hygiene efforts by correcting duplicate accounts, merging records, and updating stale profile attributes in CRM and identity directories to improve reporting accuracy and personalization.
  • Track operational KPIs such as average time to resolve account tickets, first response times, reopened incidents, and accuracy of account provisioning, and present findings in team retrospectives.
  • Help maintain system integrations for account syncs (e.g., HRIS to Active Directory, CRM to billing) by monitoring sync logs, reporting failures, and working with engineering to resolve mapping issues.
  • Support privacy and data subject requests by preparing and delivering records needed for user access, correction, or deletion requests in cooperation with the privacy team.
  • Assist with pilot rollouts of new identity or onboarding tooling by enrolling test users, documenting edge cases, and capturing user feedback for product and operations teams.
  • Coordinate with external partners or vendors during federated SSO or partner onboarding by validating identity assertions, exchanging metadata, and ensuring secure trust configurations.
  • Perform ad-hoc data validation and exploratory analysis to support process improvements, using spreadsheets and basic query tools to identify trends, anomalies, and recommended operational changes.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to inform account management workflows and efficiency improvements.
  • Contribute to the organization's data and identity strategy by documenting requirements and use cases discovered during daily account operations.
  • Collaborate with business units and product teams to translate user account needs into engineering requests, acceptance criteria, and reproducible test cases.
  • Participate in sprint planning, stand-ups, and other agile ceremonies as a member of the operations or IAM squad to help prioritize backlog items and support continuous improvement.
  • Assist with manual and semi-automated testing of identity-related deployments, feature flags, and bug fixes in staging environments prior to production rollout.
  • Support occasional cross-training sessions and internal workshops to raise the team's operational knowledge and share improvements discovered while executing daily tasks.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Hands-on familiarity with directory services such as Active Directory (AD), Azure AD, or Okta for user provisioning, group management, and basic troubleshooting.
  • Experience using ticketing systems and customer support platforms such as Zendesk, ServiceNow, Freshdesk, or Jira Service Management.
  • Basic CRM knowledge with hands-on exposure to Salesforce, HubSpot, or similar platforms for updating account records and running simple reports.
  • Fundamental understanding of single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and common authentication flows (SAML, OIDC).
  • Proficiency with spreadsheet tools (Excel, Google Sheets) including VLOOKUP, pivot tables, and data cleaning techniques to analyze account datasets and produce operational metrics.
  • Basic SQL query skills for extracting and validating account and usage data from databases, or comfort using report builders and BI extracts.
  • Familiarity with identity and access management (IAM) concepts, role-based access control (RBAC), and least-privilege principles.
  • Experience with logging and monitoring tools or the ability to read system logs to gather evidence for account incidents.
  • Comfortable using Windows and macOS environments; basic troubleshooting (profile issues, local app authentication) is preferred.
  • Exposure to scripting or automation basics (PowerShell, Python scripting, or Airtable/Make integrations) is a plus for validating provisioning automations.
  • Knowledge of data privacy and compliance concepts (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI) relevant to handling account information and responding to data subject requests.
  • Strong data entry accuracy and attention to record-keeping to ensure account metadata is consistent across systems.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent written and verbal communication with the ability to explain technical account issues in plain language to non-technical users and stakeholders.
  • Strong customer service orientation and empathy: ability to stay patient, professional, and helpful with frustrated or anxious users.
  • Attention to detail and high level of accuracy when handling account changes, permissions, and audit logs.
  • Problem-solving mindset with curiosity to investigate root causes rather than only applying surface-level fixes.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to manage concurrent tickets, onboarding tasks, and ad-hoc requests while meeting SLAs.
  • Team player who collaborates well with cross-functional teams (Security, IT, Product, Customer Success) and shares knowledge proactively.
  • Adaptability and eagerness to learn new identity platforms, security best practices, and operational tools as the environment evolves.
  • Strong confidentiality and ethics when handling sensitive account or PII data, with an understanding of when to escalate concerns.
  • Analytical mindset for monitoring KPIs, spotting trends, and suggesting measurable process improvements.
  • Reliability and ownership: ability to follow through on commitments, document work, and transfer knowledge when handing over tasks.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • High school diploma, GED, or actively enrolled in a college/university program. Candidates should demonstrate strong computer literacy and customer-facing experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Pursuing or recently completed a Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Administration, Cybersecurity, or a related technical/business field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Information Systems / Information Technology
  • Computer Science
  • Business Administration / Management
  • Cybersecurity / Risk & Compliance
  • Data Analytics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 0 to 2 years of relevant experience; internships, part-time helpdesk/support, campus IT support, or customer service roles count toward experience.

Preferred:

  • 3–6 months prior internship or part-time experience in account operations, IT support, helpdesk, or customer success; familiarity with at least one identity provider (Okta/Azure AD), one ticketing system (Zendesk/ServiceNow), and basic Excel/SQL skills preferred.
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