Biomedical engineer, then field service, now MedTech sales.

I think AI first, whether in engineering, service or sales. I build my own productivity tools with it and use them every day.

Lukas Ben Mangel is a biomedical engineer from Lübeck. He moved from field service into MedTech sales at Stryker in January 2026 and sells AEDs and evacuation chairs across northern Germany. He also designs and builds his own apps, and works on how products find their market.

Now: Sales Representative, Stryker Public Access
Before: Associate Field Service Engineer, Stryker ProCare
Trained as: Biomedical engineer, FH Münster
Languages: German, English, Spanish, Chinese (basic)
Base: Lübeck, Germany

Network map

Line 1 — Career
Line 2 — How I think
Line 3 — Off the clock

Line 1 · Career

Story

Station 1 · 09.2017 – 05.2023

Biomedical engineering

I studied biomedical engineering: the theory of how medical devices are designed and why they work.

Degree: B.Sc. Physical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, FH Münster

Lukas at a demo table, holding a surgical power tool over an anatomical training model — Stryker HQ, Kalamazoo, April 2025: trying the tools myself at an engineering course.

Station 2 · 04.2022 – 02.2023

Thesis, grade 1.0

Bachelor thesis at Evident Scientific, grade 1.0.

After my thesis, Evident invited me to keep working on the project and turn it into a real program.

1.0 Grade

Bachelor thesis

„Entwicklung generalisierter neuronaler Netzwerke zur quantitativen Biomarker-Analyse in immunhistochemischen Mikroskopieaufnahmen pathologischer Proben“

Station 3 · 08.2023 – 12.2025 · Cold plunge 1

Field service, Stryker ProCare

In 2023 I joined Stryker's ProCare team as a field service engineer in Schleswig-Holstein and learned the practical side: repairing devices on site and talking to the people who use them. I learned an incredible amount.

I found that most of the stress in service, I'd say about 80 percent, comes from poor communication. So I changed how I talked to customers. When a customer called, stressed because their ambulance was off the road, I listened first and took the problem seriously. Then I told them plainly what I could do. If that was not enough, I found a colleague or a service partner who could. Some days got very long, because I stayed until the problem was solved. After once or twice, customers knew they could depend on me, and they told me openly when a problem could not wait. When I left, my area ran calmly.

Role: Associate Field Service Engineer
Award: Top revenue contributor in the 2024 EMEA ProCare campaign
Speaker: July 2025: invited speaker on motivation and personal development for the ProCare Medical team

Lukas kneeling on the floor at a CPR training, pressing on a red training pad

Station 4 · since 01.2026 · Cold plunge 2 · You are here

MedTech sales, Stryker Public Access

I serviced Stryker Medical's emergency and hospital equipment before I switched into Sales, selling some of the portfolio to a very different customer segment.

In January 2026 I moved into sales and took over a territory that had had no direct rep for more than three years. I knew the devices, but not the customers. So I built a network of eight lead givers, first aid trainers, consultants and safety specialists, and trained each of them on the products. I also learned that customers with many sites, such as municipalities, care most about checking their devices remotely. And I started a small LinkedIn series that brought three leads.

Role: Sales Representative
Territory: Niedersachsen, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg
Devices: AEDs and evacuation chairs see Stryker's public product pages
Feedback: Collected customer requests; Marketing says it added them to its next annual plan

Alongside · since 06.2024

Stryker Emerging Professionals

Founded the Stryker Emerging Professionals (SEP) chapter for Germany, Switzerland and Austria in June 2024 and led it as President. It grew to 120 members in six months, and I was invited to Chicago to represent the region at the Inclusion Summit. Since 2026, I have been Global Liaison for SEP. I connect the Executive Steering Committee with the local SEP representatives in EMEA and APAC, and I sit on the Executive Steering Committee.

Lukas in a dark suit and white sneakers, leaning on a stone balustrade with city towers behind him at sunset — Inclusion Summit, Chicago

Line 2 · How I think

How I approach a problem

Before I solve a problem, I check two things: does it matter, and is it urgent. Then I make it concrete. I let an AI ask me twenty questions until the problem fits in one plain sentence. Next I talk to people who might have solved it already, so I don't fix something twice.

One example: in sales, I struggled to find new opportunities in my territory. That mattered, and it was urgent, because a stalled pipeline means no sales. I used AI to map my options, asked colleagues how they found new business, and combined their best practices into an approach that works for me. The result is my lead-giver network.

Line 2 · Working with AI

How I work with AI

Second brain

My second brain holds my projects, decisions and reasoning, and what I know: laws, books I've read, quotes I keep. It is plain text that I and my AI can search, and my source of truth for everything I write.

Board of advisors

An AI board of four advisors that I ask for a second view on business and career decisions.

Anti-impulse advisor

Before I act on a strong urge to change course, I ask what it really means and why it comes up now. Then I work through it in a weekly session with an AI coach until I find the goal underneath.

Tagwerk

My own task app.

I built this site with Claude, an AI. I set the goals, wrote the content and made every decision. Claude wrote the code.

Line 3 · Off the clock

Off the clock

Off the clock: cooking and wine, lifting and triathlon, skiing, American football as well as reading and gaming.

Lübeck

Lifting and triathlon

I lift weights and train for triathlon, on the way to becoming a hybrid athlete.

Black-and-white portrait of Lukas in a tuxedo, holding an ice cream cone and looking off to the side

Lukas in a hospital chair during a stem cell donation, connected to an apheresis machine, smiling

Stem cell donor

Donated stem cells through DKMS

Line 3 · For the curious

More about me

How I work

Gallup CliftonStrengths top five, then DISC.

Learner: I love learning new things. I bring ideas from engineering, service and sales to the problem in front of me, and that is where new solutions come from.
Achiever: I finish what I start. I work best with clear goals and deadlines. If nobody sets them, I set my own, so I can see the progress.
Individualization: I want to know what drives each person. Leading a small team, I learned to give a task not always to the most skilled person, but to the one who grows most from it or wants it most.
Positivity: Realistic optimism. I bring energy to the room. I show what can work and name the risks, instead of leading with what can go wrong.
Focus: I block focus time for the most important task and turn off all notifications. On hard problems I first move to clear my head, write every thought down, then work through each idea in the next focus block. Afterwards I check what worked.
DISC mostly blue, a good part yellow, a bit of red (self-assessment): Blue: I love facts and numbers, and I test my ideas like a scientist: how could this be proven wrong? Yellow: I enjoy good conversations, stories and learning how people work. Red: the part of me that says: let's do something now.

Books

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn: Big breakthroughs start when someone looks at a problem from a new angle, or notices something odd and asks: why is that? The same works in business.
Thinking, Fast and Slow Kahneman: How decisions are made, big and small.
Think Again Grant: Being wrong is useful. I treat my opinions as hypotheses and look for the evidence against them.
Supercommunicators Duhigg: Communication is connection. You can build trust within minutes, even a deep relationship, if you let it happen: when I open up, the other person often does too.
Hack Your Bureaucracy Nitze, Sinai: How large organisations really work, and how to change a system that does not want change: find what stands in the way, and the people who want to fix it.
How Minds Change McRaney: How beliefs are held and how they open up again. It only works through asking the right questions.
Getting to Yes Fisher, Ury, Patton: How to negotiate, and that you cannot win every negotiation. So know your best alternative before you start.
Influence Cialdini: The seven levers that make us act, how they are used, and how to defend against them.
The Psychology of Money Housel: Money is not about more, faster, bigger. It is about what I want it for, how I earn it and which risk I can live with.
Leaders Eat Last Sinek: Leading is not giving commands. It is standing up for your people and giving them every tool to succeed.

Gaming

Anno 1800 and Anno 117: Use space well, build complex supply chains, and see how an economy works.
Victoria 3: The politics behind the economy: the strongest player is not the one with the highest GDP, but the one who can protect it and holds the most valuable part of the chain.
Crusader Kings 3: Think past myself: not only how this character succeeds, but how the next one will.
Transport Fever 2 and 3: Start small and scale: one rail line that grows into a network, not a line on its own.
Valorant: In a team of five, someone has to give direction and keep spirits up. I learned to make that call fast, under pressure, instead of waiting for it.
Dungeons & Dragons mostly as dungeon master: Winning means the players grow, laugh, cry and have a great time, not that I beat them. I learned the hard way to talk with everyone before the first session, and to give people options instead of one path.