Customer service engineer Review

On a normal field service day you will drive to given hospital in Scotland, meet with a qualified engineer and carry out installation, service or maintenance work on medical imaging systems. You will also be enrolled on a day release HNC college program in electrical/electronic engineering. In your first year you will work in a machine shop completing units in milling, lathe, sheet metal, electrical wiring, hand skills.

During this apprenticeship the key skill to develop is communication. You must use your initiative to contact members of your engineering team line managers and build working relationships which will aid you in completing all tasks assigned to you. Communication will also be essential in dealing with customers, there needs are your primary concern and they must be kept informed of any developments in the status of the work on there machines.

During the first year the role is tough as you will spend alot of time and money commuting to training centres and colleges doing work which seems irrelevant to the job. However this vastly improves in the second year as you are given the freedom of choosing jobs attend with engineers across many medical imaging modalities. The most enjoyable part of the program is the travel possibilities, Germany for training London for meetings.

The recruitment process itself seemed unstructured as it took a while to receive a reply however I have spoke to members of staff who have said this is now resolved. If this is your line managers first apprentices you may struggle with structure initially but will get there. A new fantastic apprenticeship coordinator has been hired by the company who is working hard to fix these issues and improve the life of apprentices.

The support network is great within the company. There are always escalation process's to follow so you know the correct person to contact if you need support. If you need support with an engineering problem there are vast amounts of support including instruction manuals, knowledge base, regional support centre, developer support, technical support engineers and of course fellow field engineers are only a phone call away.

Training providers vary. Depending on the assessor you can have a great experience or can feel like your always chasseing work and can never catch up. This will all depend in which region your employed and who is the training provider for the area. The new apprentice coordinator has made it her main task to deal with these assessors so the process should become alot smoother.

I feel the level two qualification do not carry over a lot to the job role but do give you more confidence working with your hands and in a engineering environment. The main takeaway from the training centre is the role of safety in engineering. The level three qualification feels more like a task than a learning experience.

There are yearly company subsidised night outs but nothing much else. The company could do alot to improve this area.

Yes

A great company which provides the chance to work on cutting edge medical equipment. They provide you with excellent product training in Erlangen, Germany where all expenses are paid. Once qualified you are enrolled in a great company car program and receive a competitive salary.

When undertaking the application process do not be afraid to chase the company for an update on your application. Make sure you communicate how good you are with the software side of engineering not just hardware. Great communication skills are required for the role and any understand of medical networks would help. Be flexible, communicate that you willing to perform overnight visits or travel long distance on occasion.