Boston Scientific Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

Relatively decent salary in relation to the market.
Good work-life balance.
Unlimited sick time available.
Good 401K match (for at least the time being).

Cons

Management - all levels...it's a brotherhood of dull white guys. Tow the line or be fired.
Outsourcing everything...manufacturing, IT, Software dev.
Location - Arden Hills is depressing. You're one of the chosen few if you can see a window from your cube.

Advice to Senior Management

Sell the company to J&J or anyone who will take you!! You are done in the implantable CRV space.

Pros

I joined Boston Scientific at the time it was Guidant Corp. The main reason was that Guidant/CPI was a well established company with market share close to 50% - catching up with Medtronic. The bonus was rarely below 15%, and when they hired me, they decreased the salary by 15% expecting it to always be the case. Anyway, the pros were great bonus, opportunity to advance in medical device industry by learning new technologies.

Cons

Unfortunately the pros disappeared since the time of merger. Since the time Boston Scientific has purchased Guidant, the stock plummeted and never recovered. BSC is the loser in the war with Medtronic and St.Jude Medical. Engineers are overwhelmed with work, layoffs happen every year now since 2008, sometimes twice a year. There are too many managers who do nothing but meeting with employees just once a month. Bonuses are small or non-existent. Advencement/promotion is imposible

Advice to Senior Management

Too many managers. On our group, there are two Managers II (M2), two Managers I (M1) for a group of 25-30 employees. They do absolutely nothing. The ratio must be reduced so so engineers can actually do productive work.

Pros

Great and very talented people at the staff level. It's a very technically challenging and interesting place to work. A very strong patient and customer focus.

Cons

Way too much middle management and combined with horrific leadership in the company is leading the stock into the tubes. The persistent RIF a year attitude is getting old. The end result is unrealistic workloads for employees. Middle management MBA's come up with processes and procedures they don't have to live with.

Advice to Senior Management

You are WAY to management heavy and your staff reductions have been to the meat (staff) vs the fat (management). You really need to start listening to people at the individual and team level vs management, who in most cases don't understand what they are managing.

Pros

The people (fellow employees) are amazing and incredible to work with. I really enjoy the work I do on a daily basis and the willingness of all my peers to help. No selfishness about getting ahead.

Cons

The management seems a bit lost at times. Guidant had a better culture and was more geared towards retaining top talent instead of delivering new products. Delivering is important obviously but not to the point where they don't take care of their employees.

Advice to Senior Management

None, I don't know how to manage. I have never managed and don't have any interest in telling them what to do

Pros

Flexible work life balance, industry standard compensation,
A great fulfilling satisfaction to positively impact the lives of patients !

Cons

Only the good old boys club are promoted !
Hard work does not compete with Yes men on the way up the ladder.

A management culture only wants to hear the good news. Bad news must be hidden and forbid to escalate or the messenger will pay the consecuences. Do not foster an evironment of tell the bad and the ugly. How to ensure we improve and pay attention to the ugly before we get escalated to an FDA observation or 483 ! again, and again.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to foster an evironment of open communication for bad issues as well as you do for good news. If you do not recognize bringing the bad news forward as soon as known, you will never get out the of the hole you keep digging deeper and deeper.

The foundation needs to be reinforced so you can build on it as much as you want. Current state is a house of cards !

Ray is trying to revamp the company, but I am not sure BSC has the proper foundation to be successful in the long run.

Pros

Decent benefit. Nothing else I can think of.

Cons

My salary is low. Doing great technical work but not appreciated unless you are in "leadership". That means unless you are not really doing work, you won't get good merit increase or promotion.

Advice to Senior Management

Open your eyes and see how Boston Scientific CRM have slipped in the past ten years. When people doing great work are not promote and zombie or insiders are promoted.

Pros

Good training opportunities, flexible time, might get a small bonus once is a while. "Celebration" part is okay - each project gets celebrated in a restaurant or a bar. You can wear jeans at work.

Cons

Management level is pretty poor. M1s (low level) are just M2 wannabees that do nothing much. Innovations that come from the employees become unsupported, and even punishable. I am not a racist, but looks like managers promote their country men so they scratch each others back.

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership ignores our advices anyway, so no advice given. Although there leadership training, nothing from the training is used by the leaders, from M1 to directors.

Pros

They will train the heck out of you. However you end up not using most of the training anyway. Very procedure driven for good reasons - they operate in a regulated industry.

Cons

The "good ole boy" club is alive and well. You are either in it or not. Not a very diverse or inclusive company - just look at management. They is very little opportunity for advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to work on truly treating people as their most important assets. They will tell you that is the case but it is generally all lip service. If you are aggressive and like your rewards to be linked to your performance, then this is not the place for you.

Pros

Compansation is above average, work flexibility is good. The quality of the engineers is quite good. You can get lots of experience in a short time.

Cons

Not sure of future of company. The level of burocracy is very high. Some systems are very combersome. Nearly all changes end up with things more complicated than prior to the change.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to make systems clearer and simpler. Try not to do thing like announce promotions for senior executives in the same news release as announcing massive layoffs.

Pros

A culture that encourages rotating within and between functions for broad and deep experiences. At its core there is a very strong group of mid-level managers and associates where collaboration and support is strong. Younger, gregarious group of people that create a reasonably fun work environment.

Cons

Broad business success has escaped them recently making it a more challenging environment to work in with limited growth prospects and limited opportunities for advancement. Tough business conditions have led to limited to no raises and sub-standard bonuses. Senior leadership not always as strong as needs to be to succeed.

Advice to Senior Management

Restructure the business for success, cutting deep if necessary, and use the extra money to compensate your top performers. Too much status quo has led to mediocrity and dissatisfaction.