Orion Insights for Employers, Managers, and HR and TA Leadership

After prolonged vacancies, burnout, and early attrition take hold, many manufacturing leaders reach the same conclusion: hiring must happen faster, but without increasing risk. The challenge is that traditional hiring models often force a false choice between speed and quality, reinforcing the belief that only “perfect fit” candidates can protect performance and safety.

In manufacturing environments, unfilled maintenance and service roles rarely slow production in obvious ways. Work continues, schedules are adjusted, and teams compensate to keep operations running. While this flexibility is often viewed as a strength, it can also mask the growing strain that prolonged vacancies place on people, equipment, and performance.

For many manufacturing organizations, hiring still begins and ends with the resume. Years of experience on specific equipment, time spent in the industry, and a career path that closely mirrors the job description are often treated as proxies for readiness and performance.

Maintenance and service leaders are used to solving problems under pressure. Equipment fails, schedules shift, and production demands rarely slow down just because staffing is tight. When a critical maintenance or service role stays open longer than expected, it is often treated as an inconvenience rather than a threat.

Quality Management Systems roles have become one of the most in-demand and least understood talent gaps in medical device. As regulations evolve, digital systems expand, and product complexity grows, companies need stronger quality teams than ever before. Yet many organizations struggle to find and retain the professionals who ensure compliance, patient safety, and operational excellence.

Medical device sales roles have always required a unique blend of technical fluency, clinical understanding, and relationship-building. But in today’s environment, the expectations placed on Sales Executives, Territory Managers, and Clinical Specialists have grown significantly. Buying cycles are more complex. Stakeholders are more diverse. Products are more advanced. And competition for experienced talent has intensified.

Field Service Engineers remain one of the most difficult and strategically important roles to hire in the medical device industry. They install, repair, and support critical equipment in hospitals, diagnostics labs, and surgical environments. They also represent your brand more directly than almost any other position. Yet the pool of available talent continues to shrink, and the demands of the job keep increasing.

This post is part of our series, Building the Future Workforce of Medical Device, where we examine the trends, challenges, and workforce strategies shaping the future of Medical Device. We are taking a comprehensive look at the forces that influence how medical device companies attract, hire, develop and retain their talent.

Most life sciences leaders still believe that growth comes from hiring people who know the industry. It is an understandable instinct. Scientific precision, regulatory demands, and complex product lifecycles make deep domain experience feel like the safest path.

Medical device companies are facing a rapidly shifting skills landscape. AI is transforming how devices are designed, validated, manufactured, and supported, and these changes are reshaping the workforce at every level. The roles that once powered MedTech are not the same roles that will power the next decade of innovation.

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