Epic Systems

Epic hired me with no experience, a bachelor's degree in psychology, and trained me from the ground up.

I didn't even know how to make my way through an airport solo. (Not that there is a lot of travel with QA; I tend to stick to 2-3 times per year, but you can do more.)

Immediately, I got to see how a place with a lot of resources and solid principles can get things done, and well. I got to work on important software right away and have always felt my work was important. I have the freedom to concentrate on doing my job well instead of dealing with processes that make no sense or trying to find the resources I need.

I work with interesting and intelligent people from all around the world. I get excellent pay and benefits, a raise every year, sabbaticals, stock options, the works. When I go to a meeting across campus, I can ride a cow-patterned bike to get there, through beautiful gardens. We are powered almost completely by geothermal and wind power.

I make more than triple what I made when I started 14 years ago. I've had all excellent team leaders who care about me (and I've been through something like 8 by now). I only had one bad experience with a team lead in 14 years, and even that person taught me valuable skills I continue to use.

I've been able to save up and take off a lot of time after each of my two kids (12 weeks full time, 12 additional weeks of working half time), and I've been able to manage my workload since then to support a healthy work/life balance and spend plenty of time with them. Not to mention, I've been able to support my family, including a spouse who is mostly at home with them, and buy a house.

In a nutshell, I have the stability that many in my generation dream of, and I can pursue family life, community life, and other interests without the stress of paying the bills or planning for my financial future.

Through staff meetings and customer conferences, I get plenty of insight into the big picture that I'm a part of. I've built skills in project management, time management, coaching, automated testing, coding, and more.

I've found QA to be a good job for someone like me who is outgoing and likes some interaction with others during the day, but doesn't want people to be the crux of her work. I like having time to close my door and work on something that has no emotions :), and I also love getting to work together with my awesome coworkers. I met my husband here and many friends. When I had my first baby, I had something like 10 coworkers on parental leave at the same time that basically made up our own mommy group. You can find a lot of community here.

If you're interested in eventually being a software developer, you can take courses through the UW while working here and move up to R&D if you want. I also know QA who have transitioned to technical support roles.

Every year, you get to pick charities to send money to. There are lots of volunteer groups, interest groups, opportunities to travel with your coworkers. Probably more pros that I'm not thinking of.

It's a big place. It feels smaller than it is, but it's still big. That means I sometimes feel more anonymous than I want to. Epic has a very distinctive culture, and while this is what allows for our success and makes my day-to-day better, sometimes it can feel kool-aid-ish or not transparent enough. For example, I do think it cuts down on the drama considerably that we don't share salaries with each other, but that means we just have to trust that it's all fair and without bias, which is a lot to ask. And if you suspect you're not being compensated fairly (as has happened to one coworker I know), it is hard to get any changes to happen since your boss doesn't know what you make.

I've also never been able to get anyone else hired here, so there's a feeling of, "What are they doing wrong?" I should have some idea since I work here, but I don't. From what I know of HR, we usually are using very good processes for avoiding bias, but this is not well known and hard to find out. We do not have enough female developers or black employees in general, although this is sloooowly changing.

Most employees are in their 20s, so it can feel a little lonely to be in your 30s+ like me. I do have a lot of other parents here and plenty of coworkers who I started with, but since we are always growing, there's always lots of coworkers right out of college. This is a plus in many ways, as they are smart and teach me new things. And also, I learn the latest slang and fashion :)

They bring new ideas, so that we are always improving instead of being stuck in "this is the way it's done" land. But there are times I'm jealous of people who work with people of a wider variety of ages so I could get advice from parents of older kids, learn from people who've done my job for a long time, etc.

I also am always jealous of workplaces that have office parties with alcohol; although it is a good thing for many reasons, we don't ever have any alcohol at any functions here.

Other cons:

It can be a very high-pressure atmosphere at times, and when I was newer, I felt the need to work long hours and felt a lot of stress. It took awhile to realize I could say no and wouldn't get fired, and I'm not sure that everybody has the same experience with that. I think it varies by role, since those closer to customers will have to respond quickly to events as they unfold, and in QA, we know an escalation is coming before the work hits us (developers have to code it first).

Epic hires people who care, and people who care will work themselves like a dog for things that are important. And almost all the work here is important, and it's continuous. So you have to figure out how to set reasonable limits for yourself and what strategies to use to defer or delegate work when you have too much. Luckily, Epic has lots of resources for learning these techniques.

I have always had good team leads, but not everyone I know has had a totally positive experience with that, and the quality of your team lead can have a big effect on your experience at work.

Keep working on improving the transparency of operations. Progress has been made, but there's still room to grow. Find a way to increase confidence in our compensation model, such as having an independent third party do regular reviews and a way for individuals to compare what they are making to people of similar tenure and position. This way, if they are way below average, they can find out and figure out what they can do about that. Keep beefing up resources for employees of color and let's get some programs to support our female developers as well.