Pros
Company vehicles- however the company recently started to increase the fee that's handed down to the employee to offset some of the cost of the car. Flexible hours so long as your customer is OK with it first. The position seems to be pretty reliable over the years. I haven't seen layoffs at the FSE level.
Cons
As a FSE, you are vastly underpaid at Baxter for your responsibilities working on critical care equipment. You are signing off on a instrument you service and sometimes that same device will be rolled back onto a patient within the hour. If something happens to that patient, the onus will be on you along with the company, though mostly you. Be prepared to be scrutinized over such patient incident while getting paid somewhere comparable to a cable man installer with far less liability. The responsibilities for this job just doesn't align with their starting salary structure, period. Shameful. You have wait for someone to retire or leave for the chance of becoming a senior FSE. If there is another senior level in your area, you cannot be elevated to a senior as well. The company has put out this notion that this is not the case anymore but I've yet to see this very fact get disproven. Guys in the field justify their lack of fair salaries by working longer hours, but even that over the past year the company is hammering back on overtime a great deal. And of course work/life balance comes into question whenever you're relying on some overtime to make a decent living. Worst of all, the supervisor for the North east coast is novice at the leadership position as well as forgetful. Two bad combinations. Also doesn't expound and elaborate as others normally would when given out instructions, so you're sometimes left with an awkward silence over the phone thinking more is still left to be said. Would not recommend this leadership at the local level.
