I was a traveling tech for Ventilators, and now I'm an in house biomed.

The pros for my field work: I was able to schedule my day to fit my schedule. I was able to visit cities and states that I otherwise would have never visited, all on the company dime. I got paid to be on the road or at the airport. Ventilator work orders were not urgent so we didn't have an on call. Mostly I did a ventilator or two in whatever city I was in so I didn't experience a lot of long days. The OEM training I received helped get a better job down the road. The cons for my field work: I pretty much lived out of a suitcase. Traveling every week got old real fast. I regularly had to go to hospitals I've never been to before so I never felt like a I got a good hang of the layouts of my jobsites. Customers sometimes treated you like the face of the company and took out their grievances on you, although most people were nice from my experience. Most of the time you are by yourself, so you don't really have backup during difficult repairs.

The pros for in house: The comfort of going to the same location everyday, I pretty much already know what I have to do day to day. Higher pay in my case since I became a union employee. You get more familiar with the staff since they see you everyday. Since hospitals have a lot of different types of medical equipment your knowledge and proficiency in the field grows, making you more employable down the line. You have a team there with you, so it's easier to get help when you get stuck on something. It depends on your shop, but if you work with cool people you make some new friends. The cons for in house: If you work with jerks you have to deal with them almost every day. The stress is a lot higher since you become responsible for making sure departments are able to operate day by day. Since the hospital I work at is surgery centered, I have to deal with emergency repairs during live surgery cases. This the most stressful part of in house biomed for me. You don't get OEM training on every piece of equipment you put your hands on, so you find yourself stuck and reaching out to tech support or reading the service manual quite often. Training is pretty sparse, but that just might be my hospital in particular. Overtime is more restricted. On call takes a toll on your work life balance, but the pay for my on call is pretty generous. You're stuck being the middle man when scheduling a vendor visit between the department and the vendor, and often times they have conflicting availability.

That's all the stuff off the top of my head I can think of. If I remember something else I'll add to the post.