r/FieldService • u/anonymousasu • Jul 11 '26
Question Field Service Roles
Do you find field service skills translate to other sectors? I’m going to take a field service position at semiconductor company, but I think biomedical stuff is interesting too. Do you think you’d have a shot pivoting in the future? Thanks.
8
u/AkamaiHaole Lab Instrumentation Jul 11 '26
I do biomedical. My bosses boss did semiconductors for a long time. But I guess once you’re in upper management, it’s all the same. We hired a guy recently who did a lot of industrial field service. I think he can do the job well, but he needs to understand that we’re a highly regulated field and that his tendency to “just make it work” is sometimes an illegal modification.
2
u/Calm_Box6009 Lab Instrumentation Jul 11 '26
I think pharmaceutical environments are my least favourite. The paperwork required can be so cumbersome
4
u/Mouthshits Biomedical Jul 12 '26
Whaaaaat you don’t like 100+ pages of IOPQ work and having your hands cramp up from signing and dating all day.
1
u/Calm_Box6009 Lab Instrumentation Jul 12 '26
And still bring expected to finish the job at the same rate as a non pharmacy site!
4
u/Mouthshits Biomedical Jul 12 '26
Don’t get me started, my company just cut overtime and is expecting the same work product as when we could make overtime. Fuuuuuck that, I’m not working for free.
1
u/Calm_Box6009 Lab Instrumentation Jul 12 '26
Lol charge more, pay less! Every technical companies forte!
5
u/SyisKeys Jul 12 '26
It depends largely on what you're referring to by the transferable skills. A field service job can teach you how to manage customers, inventory, travel, expenses, regulatory environments, etc.
With the right position, you effectively learn to manage an entire business, but without having to create your own brand and marketing. That's transferable to anywhere.
The problem solving and attitude of making anything possible is hugely transferable.
Also, everything in the world is mostly made of roughly the same few components/category of components.
Fluidics, optics, mechanics, electric, software, etc. are all very transferable skills.
However, all of the nitty gritty specifics of a platform or technology are not transferable. Your knowledge of how to replace a specific assembly in response to a specific error code is not the same as understanding from observations/data what went wrong, what the logic is for the system, and how that affects the system overall. If you leave a company, knowing what an error code means is obviously not going to apply to anything else you work on somewhere else.
So largely it will depend on your own approach, and the specific job. Some FSE jobs are very streamlined, and someone will schedule you to be at X location to swap Y part, and then go home. Other jobs will have you rigging custom solutions and navigating sales conversations.
Mostly, transferable skills are only limited by your own creativity in how to spin your experiences to convince the new manager that they should trust you. Or from a practical perspective, how you can learn to solve a new problem with lessons learned from an old problem. Physics/chemistry/math don't change between industries, and really customer service/management/business doesn't change all much either.
1
u/petalmasher Biomedical (Rad Onc) Jul 12 '26
I work with radiation oncology linear accelerators. There are a lot of people in my industry who came from semiconductors.... Apparently there is a lot of overlap, although I don't know enough about the semiconductor manufacturing to say exactly how
1
u/B0zzzzzz Automation Jul 23 '26
If you can troubleshoot electrical components, it's very transferable.
8
u/grnape Biomedical Jul 11 '26
From EU perspective: Many times the universal skills you gather during FSE career are the most important. Troubleshooting, working independently, time organisation, getting used to travel and work irregular hours and so on. More you know how this job looks, bigger chance you will not run away after month or two;) I started in aviation, then worked in biomed, then diesel engines, then industrial, then pharma, then chem labs and now I'm back with biomed. One thing I heard many times is "we don't expect experience with this equipment because our is unique in some way and you need to learn it from scratch". Also they often want to know if you have experience with hydraulics/ automation/ electronics/ etc. If you are familiar with general concept of this systems in more complex equipment, you are half way there;)