Working at Boston Scientific — Reviews by Employees

This place is a damn joke. Zero opportunities for advancement. Small pay increases and shrinking bonuses. Next year we will get even less of a bonus and instead will get some stock options. Thanks, but the stock is worthless. The place only seems to be worth it if you are a VP, in which there are 1000s of them at BSC.

Basically you can work for them, make less than the industry standard, take on lots of work for failed products and get stuck in the same position with no chance of advancement. Or you can work somewhere, anywhere, and be happy

I was at BSC's cardiology division for many years. Have seen several ups and downs in the business and have seen the changing of the guard. To be fair in this review I need to say that up until the last year I was at BSC, the company had within reason attempted to keep me engaged and stimulated. The first big change to the company came after the NIR stent recall and the DOJ investigation. The company went from a nimble entrepreneurial environment that rewarded risk to an environment driven by the creation of process and strict adherence to process no matter what the situation. All this process along with a newly centralized quality manual drove R&D costs through the roof and made BSC uncompetitive.

The second big culture inflection came when Jim Tobin took over and centralized the management company into corporate. All functions except sales, marketing and R&D reported to Jim and the people that sat on his Executive Committee (EC). This structure was meant to give Tobin control of the entire company. The divisions were seen as inept and having made a lot of mistakes and Tobin was going to fix that. This took any real decision making away from the divisions (including their presidents) and drove almost all decisions strait to the EC. People all the way down to the project teams could not make decisions. Tobin was seen as the BSC Senior Product Manager on TAXUS and this really never stopped all the way to the end of his tenure. This corporate structure/overhead absorbs 40% of BSC's overall spending. Only 60% of BSC's anual budget ever makes it to the divisions where the business is run day to day and the products are developed.

Third big change was the Guidant acquisition that emptied BSC's coffers and was the largest acquisition in Med Device history. This had the effect of bankrupting BSC's future and ability to react to adversity. It was an all out bet that failed. It also set up Abbott as the leader in the cardiology space for a steal of a price. Abbott already has the number one stent product in the market. The CRM business that BSC purchased is not shedding off enough growth.

So the effect of all of this? First, they are priced out of effective product development in comparison with competitors. Second, they are unable to acquire new technology to fill the growth void. Third, they have cut expenses to try to bring the balance sheet back in "balance" from negative which means layoffs, no job security, and no/very few career growth opportunities. Lastly, they have a giant new competitor to their best business (cardiology) with deep pockets in Abbott.

Recently, there's a new CEO, but he has not made changes to any of the above in any real terms. In fact, their new COO is a cost accountant and the recent cost reduction measures (including 1500 people laid off) is indicative of their mode of operation. The managers that have run the business into the ground are elevated in title, responsibility and pay. It has to be great to fail and then be rewarded. Not the way the rest of the business world works.

Much of what I have read about BSC on this site is all true. My experience had to end in order for me to grow. It is not the same place it used to be. Compensation was always a bit less than competitors here in Minneapolis, but the environment and people were fun and things were always changing. That environment does not exist anymore. Pay is flat, ability to gain ownership through stock options and grants are limited and not meaningful, benefits (medical, 401K) remain OK, growth non-existent.

Career growth is stifled by a lack of growth, cost containment and cronyism. The latter has become very bad over the last few years. Was always there, but it is less apparent today why people are promoted than ever before. If you are a woman, the presidents have lunch with you twice a year in an effort to promote more women in management. This is an advantage for women in the company, but there are still very few women in the senior management ranks. You will find them at the Director/VP level, but none are to be seen running a division, major function or on the OC/EC. If you are a racial, sexual, or religious minority forget ever becoming anything other than what you are. They are not open minded in Minneapolis or in Boston. Most minority employees that I knew did not last long. If you are a white male, under 40 and a part of the "in" group, you are as good as gold. Just to let you know, I am a white male.

I think the only reason to go to the company today would be to eventually work for another company via the acquisition of BSC or as an experience vehical. You may be able to break into med device with them, but the brand is a bit tarnished and less respected than it was back in the '90's. Take the experience and run. If you are there to get rich in an acquisition, you won’t get there unless you are VP or above. You just won’t get a lot of stock walking in the door or over time without a VP or higher title (and at this point, maybe not with even those titles). You're better off buying the stock at $7, looking for an acquisition to make money and finding another med device company to work for in the meantime.

I have spoken with my old friends there before and after the recent layoffs. The environment is poisonous and not getting any better. A lot of them were hoping for the severance that came with the last layoff. Now that they did not get the severance, they are looking for jobs.

When management is hired from out side the company and has never worked in medical manufactoring then comes in and all of a sudden people who have been doing the job for years are not smart enough to continue to do the job, this creates a hostile work inviroment. Also micro managing just creates more problems

Boston Scientific uses forced rankings for the performance reviews which ultimately decides how much money you make. Very erratic rankings. My last 4 have been all over the place. I'm fabulous and then I stink. Very demoralizing. The money is really bad. Look elsewhere. Morale stinks since they started fooling around with our money. Next year...they announced that our bonus will be comprised of their stocks! Yuck. No thank you. You'll see a lot of people running for the door as soon as they can find new jobs. We've all fallen so far behind money wise.

The pay at BSC is decent but less than SJM and MDT. The respect and communication among departments of the same function is good but cross-functionally it needs improvements due to weak leaders with their own ambitious agendas. The benfits are awesome since they are centalized under Mass. state law. The Job security is horrible because we have seen 2 major RIF (reduction in force) in two years. Work/Life balance is bad because everybody is so stressed and afraid to lose their job that some overworked trying not to become a target and even those who have gone above and beyond have been RIF'ed. It's terrible. I'm glad I left. In a company that is crumbling under it's bloated weight, only butt kissers who can get into the inner circles of the elites of BSC get promotions and it has little to do with performance, talents, skills, and everything to do with who you know and how well. Extremely beauracratic if you ask me. Politicians would be good to work for BSC since they know how to handle but what BSC need are talented Engineers. It's no wonder they don't have R&D anymore. Location are good. Co-worker competence depends. Work environment is okay.

Short story, BSC needs to restructure, RIF the deadwood executives/middle management, then RIF the below. If they RIF below first, alas, all is lost because of the beauracratic system created will cause the good engineers to be RIF and the ass kissing incompetent engineers to stay back. From what I hear they are rif'ting their good engineers already. Engineers that helped resovled their CWL issues are getting the pink slip. Horrible company to work for because your thanks for working 50+ hrs (sometimes 70hrs) is a pink slip. Why should talented professionals work for such a company with little loyal to hard working individual.

Salary starts off somewhat reasonable and but then drops off the scale. The "special people" get anything out of this company. These "special people" get paid at a decent rate and they are given good opportunities for career growth.

If you're a homosexual and/or minority, you're experience is almost always worse. They only reason they keep you around is because the government requires companies to have a certain percent of women and/or minorities. Otherwise you will not see much diversity at this company despite the Boston-area having a very large talent pool of minorities. I've even seen managers with pictures of Ronald Reagan in their offices. It is not uncommon to hear slurs against minorities or homosexuals bantered about, and if you complain to HR, expect severe retaliation and blowback since HR is simply a tool of management. Don't believe their "no retaliation policy", it's a blatant lie. I've seen 3 people complain and then go down in flames as a result of retaliation.

This is most definitely not the place to work if you are smart, talented, educated, and eager for growth in the medical device industry. You should only work at BSC if you have no experience in the medical device industry, not much education and training, and are older and don't care about the work you do or being happy, and you desperately need to pay the mortgage on your McMansion that cost 4x your actual salary.

Don't waste your time working at this inept outfit. In order to entice you to work there, they'll try to bribe you with their cafeteria and gym with personal trainer, but don't make a mistake by falling for their bribes. Just remember, all that glitters is not gold. If you've already wasted some time here, don't waste any more.

The negatives: I have worked for the company for over 3 years. Very few people have respect for themselves let alone a co-worker especially if you are an hourly employee. At that level, very few people will give you the time of day. There is very little job security and you live under the constant suspicion/threat that you are the next to be laid off or fired to help make the numbers look better. Although they claim to be all about balancing your work/life you find out in your year end review how inconvenient your balancing act has been for everyone. There is no career path or growth potential unless your pedigree is high enough. Most of the focus is on Directors and above. The campus is beautiful but your working conditions are less than desireable. The conditions are very cramped and there are very few windows. You feel as though you are in a dungeon. With regard to co-worker competence, there would be more of it if people where willing to work as a team instead of for themselves and their own personal gain. Also, if they were so arrogant and didn't feel they were above doing anything. But to be fair, I understand that this is the norm is many companies.

Positives: The benefits are decent. With todays economy, at least you have a job, for now. It pays the bills and I guess could be worse.

Work/Life Balance: You will be working long hours due to poor management planning. Most of the time, managers don't listen to employees and make poor, fickle decisions. Employees are the victims of their poor decisions and they need to spend extra time to rework and then re-rework. Working here will make you miserable and have no time for family or friends. I would not work here even if they offered me higher compensation

Benefits: Nothing spectacular.

Respect: This is not something you could think about. Management is disrespectful to employees. Managers say lots of abusive things to employees. If you try and complain to HR, HR will have you fired.

Job Security: Beware, the new CEO wants to eliminate 15% of the workforce, and will place the blame on Obama's healthcare plan and higher taxes. The company has margins close to 90% on some product lines, so blaming the upcoming layoffs on Obama is dishonest.

Career Potential/Growth: There is no room for advancement as managers do not care. Management style is extreme micro-management. Managers and directors scrutinize every document as if they don't trust our work. I think they should fire all lower level employees and do the work themselves.

Co-worker Competence: People do not take responsibility for their mistakes and there is a lot of finger pointing. Reasonable self-defense is unacceptable to our director who is too weak and trying to suck up to other departments' heads. We work so hard to prove ourselves. Other departments laugh on us as we work to death to find their issues.

Work Environment: As mentioned in a previous review, this place is like a prison. The entire facility is in a remote area and gated, security guards are patrolling in Jeeps and monitoring everyone 24/7.

upper managment making employees go against GOI's and then when a problem arrives they blame people following what they were told to do.When FDA finally get here I hope they see right through their smoke of mirrors.Their indangering peoples lives with pushing people to thier limit and not caring about quality.

Leadership gained thier position by being in a company that exloded over the last 7 years. The fact that they were good leaders in a 2 billion dollar company does not equate to them being good leaders in at 12 billion dollar company. They only promote people that will swear allegiance to the leadership and dedicate themselves 24X7 for the good of the company. This company has made consistent bad decisions since the aquisition of Guidant Corporation and the bad decisions are starting to pile up and crumble. If you want quantitative evidence of that just check out the stock price in the last 3 months. A full cleaning of the management layer is the only chance this company has to survive. We will just have to see if the new CEO has the intestinal fortitude to do so.