Pros: Lots of independence and freedom in planning your schedule. For example, you can come in and leave pretty much as you please, as long as you're getting your work done. Coworkers are generally pretty great.

Cons: A healthy work-life balance is difficult to maintain. Management is often undertrained or doesn't know what they're doing. The majority of your workload consists of projects and responsibilities that you're "asked" (expected) to take on, in addition to your role's basic expectations.

Pros: Epic is open with employees, pays well, has incredible benefits, and an excellent training program. There are plenty of opportunities to move from team to team or role to role within the company. No matter what role you work, you can feel like you're making a positive difference in people's lives by helping Epic make better medical record software.

Cons: The hours can be 45+/week on a regular basis. You're working on medical record software. If a problem is found in a live system at a client site, it needs to be addressed immediately because it could endanger the safety of patients in that hospital or clinic. If the problem is in your area of expertise, you may have to work all night or all weekend until it's resolved. Sometimes there are so many new and brilliant ideas for how to improve processes that they try one out, then jump to another, and then others. You want to follow procedure, but it's hard to keep track of what the current procedure is.

Pros: They have great food and a beautiful campus, and the coworkers generally all got along.

Cons: The management is inept, hiring their friends instead of people who really understand what it's like to work. The salary is great, which I guess they use as leverage to make people work longer hours and, as those they hire are typically new to working real jobs, we do. One of my coworkers actually brought a sleeping bag (but didn't use it) and worked 24 hours straight. I came to his manager as a warning, who told me he would talk to him. When he did, he congratulated him. The work-life balance is non-existent. They expect Epic to be your life. With good people and good food, it's hard not to, but I think it's unhealthy for a job like this to be your life. Also, taking advantage of the salaried employees, they expect them to take on more than their job title. They encourage "creativity," but what they really want is for you to give your whole mind, body, and soul to the company. I love Judy, the CEO. She does this, and it makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for the people just starting to be under so much pressure.