Medical device & medtech careers: roles, salaries & top employers
Medtech is one of the largest and most resilient corners of healthcare. The ten biggest medical-device companies alone generate well over $200 billion in combined annual revenue, and they hire across far more than sales — marketing, operations, quality, regulatory, clinical, and engineering. If your role puts you inside hospitals (field sales, clinical specialists, service engineers), you will also need to be vendor-credentialed before you can set foot on-site.
The major medtech employers
The annual Medtech Big 100 from Medical Design & Outsourcing / MassDevice ranks the world’s largest device makers by revenue. The top 10 from the 2025 edition:
| # | Company | Annual revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Medtronic | $33.5B |
| 2 | Johnson & Johnson MedTech | $31.9B |
| 3 | Medline Industries | $25.5B |
| 4 | Siemens Healthineers | $24.2B |
| 5 | Stryker | $22.6B |
| 6 | GE HealthCare | $19.7B |
| 7 | Royal Philips | $19.5B |
| 8 | Abbott (device segment) | $19.0B |
| 9 | Boston Scientific | $16.7B |
| 10 | BD (medical & interventional) | $15.1B |
Source: Medtech Big 100, MassDevice / Medical Design & Outsourcing, Sept 2025. Revenue figures are that edition’s reported estimates.
Explore live company job hubs
We keep a job hub for each major employer — current openings pulled from their official careers site, with the credentialing context reps need:
- Medtronic
- Johnson & Johnson MedTech
- Stryker
- Boston Scientific
- Abbott
- GE HealthCare
- BD (Becton Dickinson)
- Intuitive Surgical
The main career paths (and what they pay)
Salary figures below are third-party estimates (Glassdoor, Salary.com, RepVue, PayScale). Actual pay varies widely by company, territory, product line, and experience — treat these as ranges, not promises.
Sales (field sales, territory management, clinical specialists). The most visible path, and often the highest-earning because of commission. Estimates for a medical-device sales representative cluster around ~$158,000 total, with a typical range of roughly $123,000–$207,000 (Salary.com); RepVue shows a median base near $70,000 with median on-target earnings near $160,000 — a reminder that much of the number is variable. Territory managers average ~$143,000; entry-level medical sales runs roughly $47,000–$75,000 to start. A guide to breaking into medical-device sales walks through the path in detail.
Marketing & product management. Splits into upstream (product strategy, new-product planning) and downstream (launch, messaging, sales enablement). The pivotal Product Manager role is estimated around ~$146,000 (Glassdoor), usually wanting commercial sense plus technical/clinical fluency.
Regulatory affairs & quality. The engine that gets devices cleared and keeps them compliant — stable and in-demand. A Regulatory Affairs Specialist averages around ~$111,000 (Glassdoor); RAC-credentialed professionals span roughly $77,000–$180,000 by seniority (PayScale). Adjacent quality roles are equally central in an FDA-regulated environment.
Operations, supply chain & manufacturing and engineering / R&D, clinical & field service. The largest device and supply companies run vast manufacturing and distribution operations; R&D and design engineering build the products; field service engineers install and maintain capital equipment on-site at hospitals — another role that requires vendor credentialing.
The credentialing step every field role hits
Most career guides skip this: if your medtech job takes you into hospitals, you usually can’t enter the building until you’re vendor-credentialed. Hospitals require reps to clear a credentialing platform (Symplr/SEC³URE, GHX Vendormate, and others), with up-to-date immunizations, training, and background checks — and it catches a lot of new reps off guard. Use our hospital vendor credentialing guide by state to get site-ready, then browse current openings on the HCH job board.
Sources: Medtech Big 100 (MassDevice / Medical Design & Outsourcing, 2025); Salary.com, RepVue, Glassdoor, PayScale salary estimates. Figures are third-party estimates and vary by source, region, and experience.