Field application engineer

What is Field Application Engineering?

‍The Field Application Engineer is the main connection between the clinical and development/technical environment. He’s in charge of maintenance, OR assistance and he is the collector of all clients’ feedback. It’s a really dynamic role where problem-solving, stress management and time management are fundamental.

What does a Field Application Engineer do? A day in the life of an Application Engineer

‍A Field Application Engineer works 80% of the time on the field. The other 20% he mostly works from home, if it's based far from the company's offices, or at the office.

As mentioned before, its main activities are: 

• Organize and realize the maintenance and the installation of the devices
• Provide assistance to the surgeon in the OR
• Exchange with the clients and collects their feedbacks
• Improve Customer Care and Service processes
• Collaborate with different teams inside the company (marketing, sales, R&D)
• Participate in congress, seminars and webinars
• Provide user's training
• Revision of the technical documentation to be given to the client

The activities of a Field Application Engineer vary a lot depending on where the Field Application Engineer is based: if it's not based in the company headquarters, it will be mainly involved in the maintenance and OR assistance activities and it will mainly help marketing and sales teams. If it is based in the headquarters, it will have more opportunities to work closely with the R&D team to help them develop new solutions and give them field's feedbacks.

The activities of the Field Application Engineer depend also on the Company structurization: 

• In a smaller company, the Field Application Engineer may be asked to follow all the previously cited activities; 
• In larger companies, the Field Application Engineer role can be more focused on some of them or managed by two different figures: the Field Service Engineer (for what concerns device's maintenance and installation) and the Product Specialist (for what concerns OR assistance, customer feedbacks recollection and collaboration with marketing and sales teams)

Job outlook: stats and growth of this role

With the market of AI and Robotics for clinical use that is constantly growing in the last 20 years, it is fundamental for the companies to have a professional figure that can both train and support the surgical team and that can plan and do the maintenance on the machine (even during the surgery, if there are some issues). Moreover, as the research and development roles are generally more interesting for young professionals, these technical figures are becoming rarer to find, so specializing in this field could be a nice career bet as the experience and the knowledge of the field can be crucial for the Companies and, therefore, money-worth for the professional.

Finally, this can be a nice first-job opportunity (especially in a smaller company), since it makes you in contact with many different professional figures of the healthcare field and gives you insights from many different fields (medical, sales, marketing).‍

How much does a Field Application Engineer earn?

• Entry-level: 30k € - 35k € (Europe)
• Mid-level (3+): 40k € - 45k € (Europe)
• Senior (5+): 55k € - 60k € (Europe)

NB: it is difficult to find a salary indication that is specific for a Field Service Engineer in the biomedical field, but the information given is coherent with my experience.

Top skills needed

HARD SKILL (focus on the biomedical field)

• Technical knowledge of electrical and mechanical devices (critical)
• Knowledge of the pathologies that can be treated with the device
• Knowledge of the OR environment
• Knowledge of the human anatomy
• Microsoft Office professional user
• English level: fluent (written and spoken) - at least B2 level

SOFT SKILL

• Problem-solving
• Adaptability
• Time management
• Stress management
• Public speaking
• Customer-oriented way of thinking
• Team player but also able to be independent 

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