principal software engineer

r&d engineer

software engineer

assembler

senior software engineer

Medtronic

A typical day at work is me looking at leads that come in, review their insurance; coverage, benefits, deductible, authorization required, and then call the patient to go over it with the products on the order. I find out how much insulin they're using and pick the correct pump size, go over infusion sets with them and help them pick the correct one for them. I collect all the documentation I need from doctors offices and patients, such as the prescription, blood sugar logs, office notes, narratives, and lab results and submit them to their insurance for authorization. Once the authorization comes back approved if needed, or the patient decides to handle the balance themselves or is covered at 100% or is approved for financial assistance, we then ship out the pump to them. We have a specific number of shipments we must reach every month in order to reach 100%.

I've built great relationships with people at distributors that do the exact same thing I do just a different company. There are several companies that can process insurances that Medtronic is not in network with, so when that happens, I speak with the patient and let them know I'm sending their file to a distributor and they will verify their benefits. I am still working the file and say updated weekly on the status. I help collect documentation if needed or contact people.

While working at Medtronic, I've learned the whole history behind diabetes, how to verify insurance and work closely with a team to reach specific goals. It's been a great experience but the medical field is not necessarily my calling, but I would love to become and outside sales representative. At Medtronic it takes someone about 6 years to reach this goal and I'm a go-getter and I know I can become a successful representative now.

The management portion of Medtronic is different. We have a supervisor for my team who is amazing and we all respect him. Then we have our district managers, regional managers and the inside sales manager. There are about 250 diabetes therapy associates, which are broken up into regions, districts and individual territories. Lately there have been so many new "rules" that have come out that micro-manage us so much it's a bit much. The changes the make doesn't prevent or help us from doing our job correctly, it just creates so much more work for us to do that is tedious and unnecessary. The head of inside sales told us that he doesn't know how we do what we do, in regards to shipping pumps and CGMs. He has no idea how to work Centricity or the process we go though to ship out orders, which is not something you should tell your employees.

My co-workers are great, I have a great amount of friends at work. We all help each other out if someone has questions about anything. For the most part, every one is around the same age, give or take 5 years. The team I'm on, Michigan, is extremely helpful, any questions anyone has we either all try to help or go to the person that has the most knowledge for that question. There isn't a person on my team that doesn't help when asked and we all cover for each other if someone is gone for a day or is needing additional help with work overload of patients. I couldn't ask for a better team to be a part of.

The hardest part of the job is doing everyone's job that is included on the file and getting paid the least amount. As a DTA, we must know everything there is to know about the pump, the details and how to verify insurances and how to fix mistakes from the previous person. There are mistakes made daily by either the DTC or the insurance verification team or the territory manager that we must catch and correct. Some DTC's and TM's are more concerned about just getting a patient's file open because that's what they are striving for, but we must process the orders, in which we're striving to ship out. There is always lack of health information, the wrong insurances or benefits, or the patient has no idea about pump therapy. Therefore, we must collect the health information that should be collected before the file is opened, verify the insurance ourselves and send it back to be re-verified by the insurance team, and also sell the patient on pump therapy. The patient should already be sold on the therapy but that's not always the case. We'll spend hours on the phone going over all the details of pump therapy with patients explaining how it works. It's beneficial for the patient if they decide to move forward and are able to afford the pump and get authorization approved, but everyone I've talked to in my position all feel we deserve much more pay for what we have to deal with and correct. We are basically the core to the process, without our position pumps wouldn't ship out.

The most enjoyable part of my job is leaving there everyday knowing you are helping someone make a great change in their life and hear how excited they are to start pump therapy. And know that it could help put an extra 15 years on their life.

SUMMARY
•	Over 10+ years of professional Information Technology experience, with expertise in the field of Enterprise Data Warehousing, Data Integration.
•	Thorough understanding of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) including requirements analysis, system analysis, design, development, documentation, training, implementation and post-implementation review. 
•	Experience in using Informatica ETL tool v9.1.0/9.0.1/8.6.1/8.1.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.1, Informatica PowerExchange 8, Informatica Developer 9.1.0, Informatica Analyst, Informatica Administrator with industry best practices and experience in Reporting tools like Business Objects and Cognos. 
•	Full life-cycle development experience in Data Warehousing and ETL/Data Integration projects. 
•	Experience in using Oracle RDBMS v11g/10g/9i with proficiency in writing SQL queries and PL/SQL procedures.
•	Worked extensively in Design and Development of Data Warehouse and Data Integration projects using ETL tool Informatica Power Center and Data bases like MS SQL Server, MySQL, MS Access, Oracle, Teradata and DB2 and is versed in PL/SQL.
•	Experience in creating UNIX shell scripts and Windows Scripting.
•	Experience in integration of various data sources from Databases like Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and formats like flat-files, CSV files, COBOL files and XML files.
•	Extensive experience in performance tuning and code optimization.
•	Expert on various UNIX (AIX, SUN, HP - UX and SVR) systems and Scheduling tools like AUTOSYS, Tivoli & CONTROL-M.
•	Extensive experience in SQL, PL/SQL, stored procedures/packages, Functions, Triggers, Synonyms, Sequences, Materialized Views and other Oracle Objects and UNIX/Linux environments and Shell scripting.
•	Possessing strong leadership qualities, good communication, strong interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, good team coordination and commitment to work.
•	Having good Analytical skills in taking innovative decisions and providing solutions.
Leadership Experience:
•	Demonstrated Strong Communication, Leadership, Analytical and Problem Solving Skills.
•	Involved in planning project tasks, estimating project size, scheduling and tracking tasks.
•	Proficient in analyzing and translating business requirements to technical requirements.
•	Guided the entire project team on the project’s quality process. Conducted variance analysis and defect analysis. Conducted causal analysis meetings and discussed with the project team on the causes and corrective actions and tracked to closure. 
•	Allocation of tasks to team and guiding team to timely completion of project work.
•	Involved in effective reviews of code, test plans and guided the team in following the best code practices and creation of effective test cases.
•	Involved in tracking the reviews and testing defects to closure.
•	Managing the timely delivery of project work. Providing updates to senior manager on project progress.
•	Involved in client status calls every week and provided updates on tasks. Involved in client interaction on any queries / risks in tasks and provided solutions.
•	Defined number of process improvement to eliminate the person dependent approach

This is a company that makes live-saving products and is known worldwide as the creator and innovator of these parts. It's a good feeling to work at a wholesome place that makes products that keep lots of people alive, as opposed to some dim job at a soulless bank or insurance company. Stability? Well aside from the current wave of outsourcing it's stable - the world will always need this company's products and will pay money for them. Benefits? If you make it on as an FTE you've got almost the gold standard of health insurance and PTO.

But... Nobody in this department, including managers, have much pull. That's they reason they are stuck here. They want out too. They act like they do, but they don't. Don't fall for the hype. There isn't much of a way up and out of this entry-level job. Maybe 1% of people actually move out of the IT Support Center onto something else. Like any job - if you don't move up in 2 yrs, move on. The IT Support Center is put in a separate dingy building that the rest of Medtronic forgot about; visit any other office at Medtronic and it's modern, airy and pleasant, but Sullivan Lake is stuck in 1979 and is just not a very comfortable place to be. Some of your peers are brilliant, many are not so brilliant, because this is the best job they could pull off out of college. You'll constantly be sold this hype of helping others and "saving lives". We don't save lives. We deal with people's jacked-up iPads and email, don't flatter yourself, you're not a doctor, it's the same exact role as at any other corporation on earth in an IT helpdesk. A lot of IT at this company feels out of date in ways, as if the company repeatedly slaps bandaids on perpetually broken systems rather than exerting time and effort to replace or upgrade them.

Medtronic cycles between two types of leaders. They start out with leaders who come from a scientific or engineering background, who understand the product, and who understand that to make good products you have to keep the employees happy and encouraged (which takes money and effort). This goes on for a few years, then the BoD decides that the company is spending too much money keeping people moderately happy, and they need to be more competitive with similarly-situated companies on the stock market. They replace the scientist/engineer CEO with a beancounter who starts slashing and burning everything, and outsourcing anything that can be pulled up from the ground. This panics all the employees. Good employees up and quit (hey I did that) leaving the place in ruins. Stop doing this. You know better. When Medtronic does this they throw away thousands and thousands of years of collective experience, and the company has to relearn it all over again and pay extra money to fix the damage. Maybe I'll come back in 5 yrs after the damage from outsourcing everything to the lowest bidder is stopped and you need experienced people to come in and fix it all up again. Good luck!

What is the best part of working at the company?
The mission statement and company values - it was the best company I ever worked for!

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
If you don’t like competition for different jobs, that might be stressful for you. It’s a great company, and they hire highly experienced and skilled people.  Many jobs require college degrees, so if you don’t have one, that may be stressful trying to figure out how to get one while working full-time.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Professional and organized people are highly valued at Medtronic.  Meetings run smoothly because of experience and professionalism, and the executives are top-notch MBA’s who exude professional behavior and lead employees to successful careers in the medical device industry.  Successfully meeting all objectives as well as career satisfaction for the employees is important to the Medtronic mission. Performance reviews are used to determine next steps in your career path. Perform well, and you have a clear path to success. This company makes implantable devices for human use, and for that reason the company is regulated by the FDA. Career success is very important to each and every manager and employee.  The mission to help people get their health reinstated after cardiac events is  the top goal of the company.  Earl Bakken, the company founder, was a strong humanitarian and a very compassionate individual.  He led the company to its current success along with  his executive team, which consisted of the CFO, CIO and other top executives.  This team continues today and can be credited with growing the suite of therapies that extends beyond cardiovascular disease.  Attend a holiday party—where physicians and patients tell their personal stories of medical issues and how Medtronic solved them—and this will become the reason you decide to spend your career working for this company!

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Each day is different and provides new learning opportunities as well as stability for career-focused individuals.  As far as I can tell, employees are diverse and work well together. My day usually consists of getting organized in the morning, attending meetings throughout the day, following up with people to ensure everybody has what they need, and working with the sales teams and IT to ensure all objectives are being met for customers, the company, and employees.  So working extensively with people and technology while using critical thinking skills to make decisions. My understanding of day-to-day activities for most people are similar to what I experience.  Most employees I know love working at Medtronic.

Enthusiastically served as SWE Global Leadership team site leader and liaison for a group of 23 charged with delivering plant-wide employee training, development, and mentoring programs in a variety of key topics. Excellent interpersonal and coaching skills.  By creating and managing SWEnet as the lead, this group was focused on using practices and objectives that will provide an employee-oriented, high performance culture that emphasizes empowerment, quality, productivity and standards, goal attainment, and the recruitment and ongoing development of a superior workforce. Along with this I have coordinated implementation of services, policies, and programs through Human Resources staff and Senior Management.  I have carried out responsibilities in the following functional areas: departmental development, employee relations, training and development, organizational development.
•	Organizational/ Space Planning.
•	New hire employee orientation, development, and training.
•	Assists with the establishment of an in-house employee training system that addresses company training needs including training needs assessment, new employee orientation or on boarding. Assists managers with the selection and contracting of external training programs and consultants. 
•	Provides necessary education and materials to managers and employees including workshops, manuals, employee handbooks, and standardized reports. 
•	Assisted with the recruitment process for exempt and nonexempt employees using the standard recruiting and hiring practices and procedures necessary to recruit and hire a superior workforce. 
•	Reviews resumes for all candidates and interview nonexempt, and exempt when assigned, candidates for employment. 
•	Recommends employee relations practices necessary to establish a positive employer-employee relationship and promote a high level of employee morale and motivation. 
•	Participates in the conduct of investigations when employee complaints or concerns are brought forth. 
•	Assists with employee communication and feedback through such avenues as company meetings, suggestion programs, employee satisfaction surveys, newsletters, employee focus groups, one-on-one meetings, and Intranet use. Assists with the company-wide committees including the wellness, training, environmental health and safety, activity, and culture and communications committees. 
•	Helps monitor the organizations culture so that it supports the attainment of the company's goals and promotes employee satisfaction.

*Typical work day is normal
*Their is room to learn from schools, upper leadership won't teacher ( job security).
*Leadership doesn't like correcting issues because it creates negative waves.
*Management spend more time being reactive than proactive. And spend have of the day in meeting that get nowhere.
* Dealing with people that been there for years is the most difficult thing, their entitle to special privilege's and work the buddy system with supervisors. (Hostile and Favoritism)
* Hazing comes from people that been there the longest, seen they are friends with Management. (Hostile and Favoritism)
* Human resources favors the upper Management and supervisor wants. (Favoritism)
* Human Resources will let employees go on investigations of hear say, with out properly conducting the investigation, to please the Supervisor or the Employee whom has been their the longest.(Favoritism)
* Humana Resources Personnel lack the experiences and backbone to do what is right, and take the easy way out.(Favoritism)
* In a conflict between two employees the one with the most seniority is normally kept and the other employee is let go with little or insufficient ground.(Favoritism)
* IT Department only works when upper Management needs something. Older Electronic systems are not properly disposed of, and work order are constantly written off as completed, when they don't want to do the job. It may take you months (4-8) to years (2-3) to get a work order completed if Upper Management is not involved.
* Electrical department and Facility department can be found chilly in their breakroom, and work orders not tended to.
* Management and other departments use COVID 19 as an excuse to postpone work needed form months.
* School used in benefits programs are below standard, a check the block type school.
* 5S Program is given to a lot more employees than necessary, they will never use those skill.
* 5S Program is a check the block school for most of Management, it's a Pass and forget class. Because they don't care to use it
* Contactor are aloud to park anywhere and consistently park next to employees vehicle, causing damage, and it is NEVER caught on camera.
* Security camera only catch things that they want to catch, and most of them don't work good enough to tell weather its' a man or a woman.

TLDR: US IT Support Managers are motivated by nothing but promotion or looking good. They don't know anything about software engineer so they hired junior developer who want to work for Medtronic to develop software that breaks every day and reports wrong numbers just so department KPIs look good . And they blame people who developed tools when bad tools get caught. Or they hire another developer to wipe their mess when one left. 

I worked at Global  IT Shared Services for 3 months as a Business system analyst in Columbia Heights. Overall Medtronic is a great company and I enjoyed it every time when I was working at Mounds View Campus. 

But the Global IT Shared Services lacks structure, discipline, and leadership. I worked at US IT Support Center to provide analytical/Business Intelligence solutions to the company to gather IT Service Management KPIs and apply insights to improve service quality and efficiency. But there was no official project established to implement the data-driven strategy globally, neither any department under Global IT could easily agree with each other on the right KPI to use, let alone to ensure the quality of data gathered and analyzed. 

The local  IT managers in the US IT Support Center then only care about their numbers or BI solutions 'look better' compared to their peers in Europe and other regions, when reported to their own management under the motivation of wanting to be promoted. Because of this kind culture, poor quality reporting applications were developed and put into production under managers' requests. 

And the lack of documentation on source code, KPI formulas, or system changes often result in system failing in production level and conflicting or wrong numbers being reported to the next -level management. And local managers would  blame the developers/analysts if next-level managers question the validity of the KPI values, yet they did not agree on more time/effort needed at first place to guarantee the quality of the software during development.

The Inside Sales office in San Antonio is basically a glorified call center. On the upside you learn the sales end of the Medical Technology industry on the business to consumer spectrum. 

The inside sales positions are a composite of two different roles. The Diabetic Therapy Consultant which initiates contact with diabetic patients that either have never utilized insulin pump therapy, or are existing insulin pump patients and are now eligible for replacement. This position entails being on the phone with patients for 3+ hours per day discussing everything from health issues, to health insurance information. This role also communicates directly with the field team throughout the day to arrange new patient referrals.

The other role which is lower in the organization hierarchy is the Diabetic Therapy Associate. This role receives the leads, which have been opened by the Diabetic Therapy Consultant and then carries the order through to closure. Diabetic Therapy Associates send prescriptions to physicians, work with insurance companies to gain compensation for the orders, and then arrange the financials with the patients. The final stage of the order entails shipping the patients their medical devices. 

What an employee will notice right away is that while this company's surface mission is to "change lives", the inside corporate culture could not be farther from the truth. Patients are numbers to this company. They are nothing more than customers. Both roles are highly micromanaged by several layers of management. There are several arbitrary performance metrics that employees are evaluated on throughout the day, month and quarter. Several times per day employees are given quota after quota after quota. That's not to say that one should be so naive to forget that this company is a business, but at the same time, it becomes obvious after working there for a short while that there is clear disconnect between corporate culture and the company's external mission/brand. 



Work/ Life balance: Lots of nights, weekends, and holidays. No notice calls. Divorce is common with reps or at least bad home lives. If you work a 40 hour week, youre seen as a slacker. Expect 60-70 hours per week.

Management: Micromanaging managers. Weekly ride-alongs that impede business development. They expect you to flip doctors overnight when it takes months. 

Work environment: High stress. You will see lots of things that will make you question the morality and legality of business practices and the conduct of other reps. Much of working for this company is a popularity contest. If you cant be a part of the club, you wont last.

Pay: Earning potential is high but reps are paid obscenely more than they deserve and in many cases more than the doctors themselves. Their mileage reimbursement is disgracefully low. I regularly drove 3-5 hours for a single case. Plan on 2-3 thousand miles per month on your vehicle. No that isnt a typo. 

Culture: At corporate there is a very big team feeling, but out in the territories its more cut throat. I personally hated never knowing if I could even trust the people I was working with. They would readily throw you under the bus if it meant advancement for themselves.

Longevity: Medtronic is constantly undergoing restructuring. I (along with 200 others) was laid off after just 18 months as part of a RIF. They literally called on a friday and said dont come in monday. No notice. The reason was for a 2% cost reduction. 

The most enjoyable part of the job is not being confined to a cubicle. You are out and about and talking to people. The down side is that you are expected to never plan anything in your personal life. My partner hadnt taken a vacation in over 5 years. 

Id also consider whatever offer they make you with reservation. My written contract was for 120k, but was only paid 80. When it was brought up, they conveniently stated that due to budgetary restrictions in the territory, I was limited to 80. I was never paid what I was promised even though I was doing the same job.

There are some great aspects of Medtronic, but it can also be very complex and difficult to navigate successfully. The culture can also be hit or miss depending on the business unit and management. I enjoyed working with my colleagues in general as well as handling the complexities of my position, but in my business unit the morale was low and the bulk of us were extremely overextended. 

Medtronic uses agencies to fill positions with "contractors" for purported reasons such as ensuring you are an organizational fit; however, this is unfounded in most aspects and most "contractors" hang in limbo for an extensive period of time. In addition, support in each business unit is dependent on your direct manager even if your indirect managers are substantially more supportive as well as recognize your work quality and understand the imperative subject matter you handle on a daily basis. It is very possible that you might be liked by other business units and requested to handle certain things (including requests/performance praise from a business unit up to their respective VPs), but your success in the organization is easily stained and terminable based upon your direct manager and their insecurity or otherwise. 

Management is not always inclusive and it is reasonable as well as my experience and belief that it is possible some discriminate against classes of persons that should be protected under the law; however, no such protections exist due to contractor status. Anticipate two years of being a contractor, if not longer, gaps in pay due to company shutdowns and holidays that agencies often do not inform you of during the hiring process, inequitable treatment as described above, and an imperative need to perform at high levels without regard to your compensation. Compensation is not commensurate with experience, education, or skill. Ensure that you are skilled/performing well as well as remain popular with the right people at all times, and pay close attention to how management acts towards you.

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