Pros: People. Epic has a lot of really smart, dedicated people who are great to work with. Food is good. Lot of responsibility right out of the gate for new grads. Developers are given responsibility for the whole design process, which certainly develops useful skills, even if it's a bit out of your wheelhouse. Compensation is great, especially combined with the (relatively) low cost of living in the area.

Cons: - Outdated tech stack/development lifecycle. Easy to fall out of touch with the industry. - Required to move to Madison, no WFH/remote work. Unless you're already from the area, not being allowed to work remotely is a big downside, and it seems the company has no plans to implement a remote work policy. - Limited PTO. - Hustle culture. I was told in one of my early performance reviews that I was expected to be working ~45 hours a week when I was logging 40. - Required time logging for salaried employees. Supposedly for capacity planning, but it just felt really micromanage-ey.

Pros: - Great for new grads - Healthy pay raises and bonuses

Cons: - Location - 5 days in office - Expected to work long hours - Poor work-life balance

Pros: The food is legitimately great.

Cons: Management continued to string us along week by week from March 2020 to August 2020 in regards to having to work on campus. Had there not been leaks from certain employees which caused media backlash, we would have certainly been forced to work on campus. However, the WFH policy still makes no sense. We are required to stay in Madison even though we are working remotely. The justification for this is "in case we need to go into the office," which is just silly, since every team has been able to manage their work remotely without the need to ever come into the office. Raises and bonuses are based on a ranking system that grades you among your peers. This would be fine except for the fact that the rank you get is intentionally obfuscated. You will be unable to get your grade no matter how hard you try. The best you'll be able to do is a vague, generic set of phrases such as "meeting expectations" or "meeting some, exceeding some," etc. The reasoning you'll be given is that they don't want to make coworkers "feel bad." Lackluster benefits: most people don't stay on for 5 years to qualify for the paid sabbatical. Keep in mind, even if you do qualify for the sabbatical, it can still get denied. If you are considering being a Software Developer, I strongly urge you to look for a different company that either pays better or tries harder to care for its employees.