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

Pros

The opportunity to work with talented and intelligent people. Everyone was open to idea sharing at the peer level. These are two of Boston Scientific's strong points. The opportunity to work on cutting edge technologies. Hearing how our products are improving the quality of life for people. The flexiblity of the work schedule which allowed for balance between work and home life. A great place to work if the position is a good fit to your interests.

Cons

The lack of communication from Senior Management was the largest downside. Their inability to give straight answers to questions gave the impression that they are hiding things. Not knowing the future direction of the company made it difficult to focus on where to generate IP. Also the appearance that Senior Management was paralyzed by making difficult decisions. The employees were treated as a number during reorganization instead of being evaluated by the skills they could supply. This resulted in a very poor fit to the position. Documenting everything has gotten out of control. The company needs to figure out how to create documentation in a smart and effective manner.

Advice to Senior Management

The lack of communication from Senior Management, especially during the "bad" times. Hearing bad news can be better than hearing no news. The lack of communication made the atmosphere difficult to work in and less fun than during the previous years. Also, waiting to long in the decision making process when canceling projects. This is a major contributor to the loss of employees.

Pros

BSCI is filled with a lot of very talented and motivated people in addition to being very experienced. The company's culture is one of continous improvement. Therefore, there's always opportunity to learn.

Cons

Senior management is very slow to promote. Lower level managers and supervisors are open and willing to promote but senior management always seem to but the stops on promotions. BSCI is a big company, and therefore it's sometimes difficult to understand where decisions are coming from. Not a whole lot of movement within company if you're interested in changing careers within the company. You seem to build a reputation and get pigeon-holed.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote more often. Listen to project teams when making project decisions.

Pros

The end use of BSC's products makes it a rewarding place to work and there are opportunities to visit cath labs and see the products in action. The human application adds an interesting dimension to engineering problems. The employee benefits are solid and vacation time is generous. Salary may tend towards the low side but the yearly bonus makes up for it. The work environment is casual and laptops are provided to engineers.

Cons

Engineering jobs have a certain lack of creativity due to the industry being highly regulated by the FDA. Project cycle time tends to span several years which can lead to a lack of variety. Career advancement and performance feedback can be manager-dependent.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase the level of challenge and creativity in engineering jobs.

Pros

It is always satisfying to work for a product that will eventually help people. Since this industry is regulated by the FDA, you opportunity for creativity is limited. Your creativity is often seen as a liability, which really takes the fun out of engineering. I guess every good things has its negatives; if you want to impact the health of people, you have to have many regulations. That brings me to another factor, there is a ton of paper work that goes along with this job. Everything needs to be monitored carefully to ensure the final product is same for its final use.

Cons

Sometimes you might not feel like you are contributing much.

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

Fairly stable business with a good range of products. It feels great to know that the work you do is helping people live better lives by use of Boston Scientific products. The latest products released are much more cutting edge compared to competitors and it's exciting to see life improving products

Cons

The market seems to be taking a toll on the business. Boston Scientific also seems to end up on the negative side of court rulings. Some of the most simple processes involve a large amount of paperwork which tends to make people not want to make changes. Promotion process appears to be a quite slow.

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

The employees are very open to working with each other to get the job done. We all realize the importance of the work we are doing, and are reminded of that when the company brings in patients who are living their lives because of our devices. The face to face time with the patients provides a great incentive. I have yet to encounter problems when asking for vacation time or emergency leave. Many of the employees will work harder to pick up the slack so when a person returns, there is not a large amount of work sitting at their desk.

Cons

Management scares me. I don't know if it is the lack of communication or my perception of such. Many times, I don't hear about meetings until right before or after they passed. And some of these meetings are on topics that impact employees directly. I also don't see management working to promote employees internally, or when they do, they don't consider performance evaluations.
I feel that leadership is not always there, nor a commitment to matching deadlines. I have seen too many projects that have slipped behind up to another 50% of their scheduled time. Other projects have been pushed waaaay too early and creates problems for people downstream to correct.

Advice to Senior Management

The first thing is to stress the importance of working with the employees. Support the employees in the planning stages when timelines are obviously non-realistic. Devise effective performance monitoring techniques and use them to better employee performance and also to promote worthy employees. When looking at ways to cut expenses, look at all expenses, not just a select few.

Pros

Great training opportunities, good medical products for patients. (Minnesota) Nice people. Engineers are talented and doing a great job. Relaxing atmosphere - you are now allow to wear blue jeans to work! Flexible day schedule for some.

Cons

Poor management at Manager I level. Too much politics, and work could be boring. Innovations are hardly supported. Problematic opportunities for growth. Hard to find related information due to terrible search (non-existent). "Celebrate" part is struggling - may be because of recent slowdown in the economy.

Advice to Senior Management

Review your M1s - should attract technical people with a lot of experience. Some namagers support slackers who do not work but receive the salary. The stock is historically low for the last two years - some heads should fall, right?

Pros

Great, dedicated, hard-working employees. Most that I've worked with are talented people doing there best to put out great work. The managers I've been under have been caring compassionate supervisors that looked out for the interests of their direct reports.

Cons

R&D and innovation are suffering. There's no appetite for riskier technologies or products. Sustaining engineering, six sigma and lean manufacturing are taking the place of innovation, creativity and discovery. Bureaucracy is becoming a huge problem. Automation of common tasks is forcing a one-size-fits-all environment that suits almost no one and makes it frustratingly hard to get tasks completed. The culture promotes too many pointless/innefficient meetings. There isn't a long term vision outlined that employees have a clear way to support, people are left wondering "how do I fit in" and "where are we going"?

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your brightest employees and give them the elbow room and resources to accomplish great things.

Pros

The benefit package is wonderful. Learn many new techaniques. Be able to interact with other departmetns to learn from your coworkers.

Cons

it is very difficult to know how to advance in your career. Compensatin is very difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of your workers.

Pros

The best reasons to work for Boston Scientific are to meet people in the industry. Also the benefits are good compared to other companies in terms of health insurance, eye, dental, and 401-k. The salary and bonus compensation is adequate or a bit below average.

Cons

The biggest downsides are the incompetencies of the Directors, especially the Directors of Manufacturing Engineering and so forth. People are promoted to Director positions, not because they are good managers, but because they know other people. The management style is classic manage by intimidation, along with little to know management downward. The Directors manage upward only. There is little to no development of people and the culture is very cut throat, very tense and very chaotic. Attention to Quality is poor and turn over is extremely high in key areas.

Advice to Senior Management

Replace management from the Director level on up.