Epic Systems

The health insurance is quite good, and by and large, co-workers are smart, interesting people.

Some people do seem to like it here, though I have not been able to figure out why.

Training:

The generic "app camp" training prepared me for about 10% of the workflows I actually test, and the QA training was a joke (approximately 2 days of poorly presented material).

Apparently, they are working on a more comprehensive QA training program, but for some reason, they did not have that up and running for the summer, during which they increased their division staff by over 30%.

Structure:

The company boasts a "flat" management structure, which is just not working out. Nobody takes responsibility for actually managing projects or workloads, and the designated team leads seem to only be team leads because they are experts at pushing work off of their plate and onto the plates of others.

Future:

This company relies on hiring people who are smart and ambitious enough to basically train themselves to work with extremely complex software. During my first two months, I honestly thought they had hired so many people to weed out the weak, so to speak (my team lead referred to the team's training method as "throwing us in the deep end").

But since, I've found out that they've actually got that much work to necessitate increasing their workforce so drastically in such a short period of time. Turnover is going to be high, especially in the QA division, in the coming months/years, which does not bode well for the company or for those who stay behind.

The product:

The software is a mess. Not intuitive at all. No wonder clinicians hate it so much.

Workload:

Varies, from what I can tell. I know of someone who has an 8/9-5 schedule. I know of QAers who work 70 hours a week. I know my team has more than we can handle right now. Can't speak to other roles, except for the fact that I get emails from developers at midnight, occasionally.

Get a job elsewhere. If you've got ambition, you are wasting it on a company that aspires to mediocrity (says so in the "commandments" or whatever those are called these days).

Though it does seem like some management positions are pretty cushy at Epic.