designer

biomedical engineer

manufacturing engineer

welder

technician

3d-Systems

During my time at 3D Systems, I had the opportunity to work on meaningful projects and contribute to the production of medical parts used in surgical procedures. The work itself was interesting and important, and there are several talented employees who take pride in what they do. I also had the privilege of working with a few supervisors and team members who genuinely cared about their staff and emphasized safety and teamwork.

However, one of the most significant issues I experienced while working there was a lack of accountability. Staff performance issues were often discussed informally, but there was little follow-through when it came to addressing them. When employees are not held accountable for their actions or work performance, it creates an environment where those who are dedicated and hardworking become frustrated while those who do not take their responsibilities seriously continue the same behavior.

Leadership consistency was another challenge. Some supervisors truly supported their teams and emphasized workplace safety and professionalism, which made a positive impact on morale. Unfortunately, that level of leadership was not consistent across the organization. Over time, this imbalance contributed to turnover and frustration among employees who wanted to do their jobs well and maintain higher standards.

I also felt that employee concerns and requests for better job placement within the company were not always given fair consideration. In my case, I believed that moving to a different area could have allowed me to contribute more effectively, but that opportunity was not made available.

The company has strong potential because of the nature of its work and the dedicated employees who remain there. However, improving accountability, communication, and leadership practices would make a significant difference in retaining good staff and maintaining a positive workplace culture.

Overall, while the work itself was meaningful, the workplace environment ultimately made it difficult for me to continue in my role.

3D Systems cares about saving money and making profit. That's about it. They tend to ignore employee needs, underpay for local markets, and never invest in their people. They are more than willing to buy new equipment, spend millions on new printers, but will not hire help, will not pay a living wage, expect employees to do several people worth of work, and when you finally quit, you're replaced by three people who all make more money than you. 
All that being said, if you're an engineer, it's the opposite. You come first, you're listened to, and you get all of the resources. This is a truly engineering first company with little regard for any other roll. 
They don't value customer service, the don't value their manufacturing or maintenance staff, and they cut budgets left and right seemingly at random. They also will not promote from within, unless you're an engineer. I've seen several engineers get 3 promotions a year, all the while manufacturing has no leadership because they won't promote or hire and accounting is suddenly a customer service job, placed on people with highschool deplomas, because it's cheaper than having an actual accounting department with a real accounting staff. 
Their director level managment is a boy's club who push out and ignore any women in the group. They also know there's a morale issue but refuse to accept any responsibility. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Awesome coworkers, great teamwork, everyone was very helpful and was supportive of each other.  Great atmosphere to grow in.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The learning curves, defining processes and the typical growing pains of realizing what resources you needed yesterday for tomorrows projects and making due by making adjustments.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The work environment can be fast paced, due to the nature of the company.  A family-like environment where everyone calls everyone by first name or playful nickname.  People look for the fun in their roles, share humor and help each other to accomplish goals whether its cleaning an area, completing an order for shipment or anything in between.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Check voicemails and emails for any needed responses or redirection.  Pull various reports and process for submitting/presenting, work on projects, assist customers and sales teams, alert management of any sales/production related issues for proactive measures.

There is the opportunity to work on things that are exciting, cool, and interesting, but the company structure and management is poor. Communication is lacking even after upper and middle management think they have communicated effectively there are often more questions than information given about anything. 

Biggest issue if qualification of management. People have grown into positions and there is no where for them to go so they become mangers or directors. They have the skills to do the jobs but not the management skills to manage people or execute strategy effectively. 

Because of the lack of structure there is the opportunity to try new positions, but don't expect to get paid for them even if you do a good job. New positions will be difficult because of the lack of cross group communication makes it difficult to deliver complex projects effectively, unless you were effectively preforming the job before you officially move. 

You learn something new everyday, which in and of itself is a plus, but often causes a lot of stress and confusion as we're often told at the last minute and offered very little, if any, training.

"Leaders" may have a lot of knowledge, but they lack sense of direction, ethics, and people skills. Meetings on top of meetings, but no real solutions; just workarounds, and quick fixes. Many of them use the buddy system and often berate and miscommunicate to their subordinates (especially ones they dislike), which has caused employee morale to plummet and employee attrition rate to rise. They are very gossipy and cannot be trusted with confidential information, as it is used to insult you or devalue you as a professional.

Due to low morale, tensions are very high. Communication can be rude without provocation. Coworkers may feud over petty slights.

Overall, there will be issues in every workplace, but some, such as this one, are just too toxic.

Some of the coolest technology you have ever scene is located within the walls of 3D systems. You can pretty much print anything you can imagine in 3D. I worked in Manufacturing building electronic components for of our most popular printers: ProJet 3500. The people I worked with were great, very positive and helpful. Management on the other hand was a complete mess. Poor direction, no communication between us and quality control, zero feedback from the field, and lack of knowledge on the machine itself. Hardest part of this job was dealing with all of the politics that go on in that company. Also the hours, we were there 6 or 7 days of the week on average. There was no work life balance. Just work. Most enjoyable part of the job was learning the machine, troubleshooting, and coming up with solutions. It gave me a sense of self satisfaction.

World class chemists and engineers, but middle and upper management have terrible policies for promotions.  The pattern of promoting incompetent people and not promoting competent chemists and engineers led to retention problems.  Working there gave me wonderful networking opportunities though, despite the poor compensation and poor growth opportunities.  Insurance benefits were reasonable but not great.  This employer only offered 2 weeks paid vacation when I was first hired, then they transitioned to "flex time" with supposedly unlimited time off but really meant now PTO rollover or compensation on accruals when leaving the company, which was unfortunate.  Overall, happy to have met the wonderful coworkers that I did, but I am glad I no longer work there. Currently trying to recruit former coworkers to my new employer.

I worked at 3D Systems for over 10 years. Knowing my job very well made no difference.  A new director came and went every 1-2 years. Each time they came in with "fresh ideas", having no clue how anything was Done. This made the day to day a continued battle to just get the job done. Each changing of the guard was diffent from the last. Some good and some aweful. As soon as we all find harmony they leave and we are responsible for the mess 
 A new person  in charge and the team starts over. Each person  will have a different stand Hybrid. Some say two days a week, some none, some say come in whenever. The last one was two days but often canceled WFH for no reason. It was very hard to get a work life balance. I finally tapped out when the newest director was moved in. I was burned out and overwhelmed with the thought of training a new director. The only plus was medical. Its cheap and very good. Only reason I stayed as long as I did. I pay double at my new job. 

Lots of upper management came in from HP and cronies of theirs, also from a competitor. Result was a "them vs us" mentality, too many VP and above level people, and not enough people to do the actual work.

Lots of talk about helping advance careers, absolutely zero assistance doing so - had to pay cost of learning opportunities myself. No mentorship in the company, and there's a strong culture of every person for themselves - VPs etc competing against each other, vs acting as managers supporting their teams. Impossible to get 1:1s with managers, impossible to get defined budgets, etc etc.

Lastly company doesn't believe in product development using design thinking. Products pushed out the door without enough testing, and as a result, they failed. Too much engineering mindset, not enough design and vision. As a result, everyone is ALWAYS stressed out.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Good benefits. On-site workout facility. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Lack of transparency company wide. Unclear paths to advancement. Intentional obfuscation with respect to salary transparency. Management manipulates opportunities for movement within the company based on numbers, not merit. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Boiler room environment. Office is like a cubicle farm. All hands meetings are used to manage employee’s financial expectations rather than uplift morale for a struggling company. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
There is a lot of wasted time effort because of performance issues in other departments, yet pressure is always applied to perform, produce despite this. Tons of IT issues.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Designer 8 salaries reported	$55,859 per year
Biomedical engineer 3 salaries reported	$70,833 per year
Manufacturing engineer 2 salaries reported	$68,750 per year
Welder 3 salaries reported	$23.54 per hour
Technician 3 salaries reported	$21.33 per hour

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