Tiger Buford, an orthopedic recruiter with 30 years in product development, shares 16 strategies for early-career engineers: get surgeon access, ask questions in meetings, own broken processes, build your LinkedIn, network relentlessly, and prioritize broad experience over salary. He recommends startups for faster responsibility and skipping the MBA for self-directed business learning.
Chapters
Brought to you by Tiger Buford. Hello, orthopedic friends. Welcome to Inside Orthopedics. My name is Tiger. I'm an orthopedic industry insider and retained recruiter for early orthopedic companies. Thanks for listening. This is episode number 10. The title is Real World Career Advice for Young Engineers in Orthopedics. So let's get into it. Orthopedics has been great for me, and I try to give back wherever I can. So this podcast is for young engineers who are just starting out. I wish I'd known these things when I was starting out. I worked in product development at 6 different orthopedic and spine companies over 3 decades. During this period, I worked with hundreds of talented engineers. I witnessed really poor career moves that rendered engineers stagnant for decades grinding it out in a cubicle. I also have seen brilliant career moves by engineers who rocketed their careers within a few short years. So based on my experience, I'd like to share advice for the young engineers out there who are ambitious and want career progression in a rapid fashion. This advice assumes that you have the right degree, you're competent, and you're working in an orthopedics or spine company. All right, here we go. 16 pieces of real-world career advice for young engineers in orthopedics. Number 1, find a mentor. Many engineers who move up quickly in organizations have an informal sponsor in upper management who looks after them, shares their accomplishments in closed-door executive meetings, and hooks them up for opportunities not available to the other faceless engineers in the organization. Ask an executive inside or outside your company to be your mentor and have coffee with them once a month. Believe me, he or she will be flattered and will say yes. Number 2: Get closer to the customer. The bottom line is the engineers who have more interaction with surgeons make more money and move up quicker. That's just a fact. Number 3, learn how to manage other engineers. This is not easy to go from being a single contributor engineer to managing at least one person. As an engineering manager. In order to jump the chasm, you have to have some informal management experience. Find a way to get it. Engineers who have mentored other engineers on projects, even if they cannot say the word managed, are the ones who get the nod for the open engineer management position. Number 4, learn how to delegate time-consuming detail work to others. Engineers who are on the fast track get more work done each week than their peers. Many fast-track engineers persuade others into helping them, such as, please review this design, review this test plan, go to this meeting for me. Talk to this vendor while you're there, add your quote— my quote to yours, etc. By delegating some of the time-consuming detail work, fast-track engineers have more time to work on other areas for advancement. Number 5: Hone your communication skills. Orthopedic management loves engineers who can articulate complex projects to others. Engineers who can express themselves clearly get invited to present to management, investors, regulatory agencies, surgeons, etc. Be one of those engineers. Take a course, read books on effective oral communication, watch and learn from other great presenters. Number 6: Each time you complete a large or challenging project, add it to your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has become really important for careers recently and probably will be for the next few years. There's something called LinkedIn Portfolio that allows you to create a wall of projects by adding text, images, outside links, and videos. Learn about LinkedIn portfolio and use it. Number 7, ask questions in group meetings. Perhaps the best way to gain visibility in a company is to ask questions in public meetings. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room to ask a question. Most likely all of your other fellow engineers have the same question anyway. Be the one who asks The question. It, it gives you great visibility. Number 8, assume responsibility for things that need fixing. Don't ask for permission, just take responsibility for designs, procedures, processes, presentations, reports that are broken and fix one, even if it's not in your job description. Management loves this and will label you as a go-getter. Number 9, this is an important one. Find a way to get into surgery. Every company is different. As crazy as it seems, many ortho and spine companies don't want a rookie engineer to attend surgeries. Tell the boss you want to go. Heck, tell everybody you want to go. Invite yourself. Tell every salesperson that you meet that you want to attend. And here's the dirty little secret: many sales professionals love to have engineers in the operating room because it makes him or her look better in front of the surgeon. So get into surgery. Number 10: Invite a company executive to breakfast or lunch. Tell your supervisor so he or she doesn't get blindsided, and you will be surprised when the executive says yes. Have a bunch of questions prepared. The secret here is that it's really a chance for you to get visibility with upper management. Engineers who are known by upper management tend to get promoted faster. Number 11, present your own work. Don't let your supervisor present your design or testing work. Insist on presenting your work directly to management. To make your boss more comfortable, do a practice presentation with your boss so he or she can see that you're not going to make a fool of him or her. Number 12, spend less time on CAD. This may be totally counterintuitive, but the more time that you are on CAD, the less time you have for the other 15 areas. The reality is that great CAD work will not get you promoted. Number 13, don't worry about your salary. Early in your career, experience trumps salary. After 10 years, you can start to compare titles and salaries with others, but for now, get the most experience as fast as possible and you will win in the long run. Network within your field. Yes, network like crazy with people at— in other companies. And don't burn bridges. The industry is small. Your next job will likely come from someone within your network. Number 15, don't get an MBA, but instead learn what you need about the business aspects from people who have complementary skills to you. Learn basic accounting, ROI, earnings, SG&A, the difference in startup company legal structures such as LLCs and C-corps, and time project management, etc. An advanced engineering degree, a master's or PhD focused on a certification course, FDA, ISO seminars, executive training course, patent agent licensing are better for your career than an MBA. And finally, number 16, go work for a startup. Yes, at least once in your career, and I suggest early in your career, go work for a startup. You will be amazed at the amount of responsibility, authority, and learning you get at a startup. And you can read my article on that. On Orthostreams. So that's all the real advice I can give a young engineer in orthopedics or spine today. Hope you enjoyed the review. Go out and do this. Follow me at tigerbuford.com or on Twitter @TigerBuford. Don't forget to subscribe. Be safe out there.
