Navigating the New Year’s Medtech Job MarketNavigating the New Year’s Medtech Job Market

It wasn’t all that long ago that Brian Cole, a recruiter with nearly 30 years of experience, believed the medtech job market was immune to economic fluctuations. The demand for professionals would never catch up to the supply of innovative technologies and devices, so he thought. The global financial crisis of 2008, however, made him think twice about that perspective. And then the coronavirus pandemic proved that no industry could ever be safe from any global medical emergency.
But what’s happening with the market today — with recurring layoffs throughout another year despite well-documented revenue gains by many of the major companies — is just as bewildering, he said.

“This has historically always been a candidates’ market, but with the way things are today – with layoffs, slowdown of money being invested with startups, and mergers and acquisitions activity — there’s no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it that this is now an employers’ market,” said Cole, managing member at MedTech Executive Search LLC, in Nashville, TN.

While Cole doesn’t see the current status quo lingering much into the future, he isn’t very enthusiastic about the immediate prospects for those who are interested in new opportunities, especially if those opportunities would represent any type of career shift. Instead, Cole and other recruiters suggest that professionals take this time of uncertainty to reassess their goals. At the same time, however, recruiters see certain hot sectors of the industry remaining more vibrant than others now and into the second half of the decade.

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Electing to wait things out

The recent presidential election is a contributing and complicating factor at the moment and will continue to be until the incoming administration’s impact on the market and the economy is more tangible. “Regardless of who is elected, there’s always a slowdown going into an election while industry waits to see what’s happening before the money faucets are turned back on,” Cole said.
Adding to the uncertainty has been the especially polarizing nature of this year’s campaigns, which had much more of an impact on industry behaviors compared to four years ago, according to Marissa E. Marsala, founder and chief executive officer of Employer & Candidate Connection, San Diego, CA.

“I didn’t think the 2020 election had much of an impact, but that wasn’t the case this year,” said Marsala, whose background includes recruiting, career coaching, motivational speaking, and marketing. “There has been a lot of hypersensitivity and hyperawareness. There are very divergent thoughts. Many job seekers, companies, and recruiters have held back until more is known politically and the economy stabilizes. The landscape has been too uncertain for many people.”
Evidence of this year’s turbulence can be found on the industry-specific job board hosted by Marsala’s company. As recently as January, medtech offered some 3,500 employment listings before plummeting to 1,700 during the spring. “That was shocking,” Marsala said. “But it has picked up by about 200 jobs since September. That’s not significant, but the market is starting to trend upwards. And those of my clients who had been withholding are now starting to release jobs. So I think things are getting better, but I’m not going to say I’m overly optimistic yet about 2025. Most companies have already decided what full-time equivalents they’re going to release for the upcoming year. I do think we will see more activity by April after these hesitations calm.”

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Industry professionals might have to temper expectations somewhat for the time being, however, Marsala has learned.

“Over the past year, many people have been taking their first offer because of the competition and the difficulty of trying to differentiate oneself from the sea of resumes,” she said. “You can no longer easily stall on job offers to wait for other potential offers. But it is still expected that most job seekers will negotiate for something more than initially offered. And I expect that to stay true as more jobs are released to the market and more opportunities for interviews occur.”

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The hot spots & sectors

One encouraging aspect of the current market is that there’s a variety of evolving niche fields with appealing opportunities as well as ongoing consistency in certain regions that have traditionally attracted medtech business. As the scope of digital technology continues to expand, roles that involve cloud-based applications, systems integration, and/or data-driven responsibilities — such as the selling of de-identified aggregated data — are of particular interest to companies that use big data to make decisions about product development, she said. “More companies are finding that they can sell de-identified, aggregated data — so any information that is stored in a machine, especially at the bedside when medications are being administered, are hot commodities,” she said.

Jobs in other data-drive fields are also on the rise. This includes machine learning, data science, informatics, bioinformatics, biostatistics, and, of course, artificial intelligence (AI).
From an IT perspective, Marsala said she’s also received emerging interest for project managers, technical writers, and programing managers who oversee integration and other large software-based initiatives, including Scrum masters, especially those with related certifications/trainings, such as PMPs, Agile, and Waterfall. “Project management software planning programs are still very viable career trajectories, as are database software professionals, such as those creating programs for tabular data tables and other popular software,” she said. “Despite the fact that many people with these skills are on the market due to deep layoffs, these are some roles that seem to be evergreen in nature.”
From a medical specialty standpoint, Cole said he’s observing healthy similarities throughout the market that are typical for this time of year.

“Every year I’m asked, ‘What’s the area of growth?’ And every year it seems to be the same answer: neuromodulation,” Cole said. “There’s just so much room for opportunity there — whether it’s focusing on Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, or depression. It’s a growing space.”

Marsala said she’s currently seeing significant activity in this space as well. “All of neuro is becoming quite big,” she said. “It was a hot job a few years ago due to increased focus on diseases of the brain, brain injuries, and sleep apnea, but today it’s also about deep brain stimulation, technologies, coils, brain navigation software, and imaging technology.”
Other specialized areas that appear to be thriving, according to Cole and Marsala, include any roles involving new product development (NPD) as well as in vitro diagnostics (IVDs), robotics, and laboratory developed tests (LDTs). “NPD engineers and sustaining engineers, whether they are mechanical, electrical, firmware, or software engineers, will be important to employ to help keep costs down and to ensure that older devices can be maintained,” Marsala said.
LDTs have gained momentum stemming from the recent decision by FDA to amend its regulations regarding their production. “I would expect that over the next four years, as FDA conducts its phase-in plan, we’re going to see much more in the way of demand for regulatory, compliance, and quality-type jobs,” Marsala said.
Cole also sees potential in cardiac technology, particularly when related to AI. “From a sector perspective, the cardiovascular side is going to be more relevant to the payers in terms of interest in what AI is going to be able to do because it’s life-and-death technology,” he said. “With AI, we’re now working with machine language that can hopefully diagnose conditions such as stroke, atrial fibrillation, and hypertension before they happen. These types of tools are going to continue to evolve and it’s going to take people to develop them, sell them, conduct clinical trials, pass regulatory approvals, and so on.”
Technologies connected to Class III medical devices are also creating more employment for those with more pre-market approval needs, Marsala said. “The applications for Class III devices are up,” she explained. “That tells us that there’s going to be more demand for anybody who has worked on these devices and those who are adept at navigating the regulations, which will continue to increase their demand.

Geographically speaking, both Marsala and Cole said they don’t see much straying from the norm. “It’s still the same group that we’ve become accustomed to,” Cole said. “California represents a big piece of the medical device world and will continue to. There are some companies leaving, but that area is always going to be strong, as is Boston and Minneapolis. I think those three areas will continue to dominate the med device-specific space because they’re just so large.”

Marsala said she also receives a lot of interest from employers in New Jersey and Colorado. She also believes newer medical device regulations in Europe could cause a surge in US regulatory jobs.  

The combination collaborative

As more company mergers and acquisitions occur, another developing trend has become more job roles that blend medtech and bio tech, two entities that generally have become intertwined, according to Marsala. “Companies are working together more, and, interestingly, more companies are allying — resulting in the market seeing more combination device companies. So the delivery mechanism or container involved could include a biologic or a drug.”

As part of this market segment, Marsala said that professionals skilled in validation, verification, and commissioning roles are more needed, as well as clinical trial tracking for product viability in addition to navigating regulatory approvals and market trials. “This is true whether they are performed at clinical research organizations or similar facilities,” she said.

Similarly, technology hubs and organizations that cultivate technology offer exciting potential. “Another nice thing about this industry is that we have those incubators, including The Foundry,  Shifamed, and Health Wildcatters,” she said. “Nobody is dominating that market. There are a lot of smaller startups trying to play in the diagnostics side of the industry, but I don’t think it’s going to make an immediate impact on employment. And there are going to be those AI companies that are going to be winners and be acquired by the strategics who won’t be able to develop that AI organically in house.”

A still-evolving industry

According to data compiled by Statista, the annual growth rate for the medical device development industry is expected to be $267.3 billion by 2029. This represents an annual growth rate of nearly 5%, with the US to garner the lion's share.As the technology becomes more sophisticated and AI becomes more of a presence, Cole suggested that professionals attempt to broaden their skills and experience within the areas that they already have the most to offer. “There is a lot of attraction to AI, and the people who want to go there should leverage the domain experience that they already have,” he said. “If you already have hypertension experience, seek out those companies that are developing that type of AI. If you’re seeking a career change, it’s not that you can’t do it. But most companies aren’t calling to ask for professionals who have two years of experience here and two years of experience there — they want people with many years of experience in one domain. They want experts. So I encourage people to determine what they’re really passionate about and to continue to gain experience there because that’s how they’re going to best leverage their careers.”