Epic Systems

I can't think of any.

To understand Epic, first understand that employees are divided into two classes: TLs (team leads) and non-TLs.

TLs can do no wrong. When a project goes badly, it is never the TLs' fault; but when a project goes well, it is all because of the TLs' leadership. A TL's primary job is to make their own TL look good. This is done through an elaborate system of records that track everything from bug reports to development projects to individual pieces of development, plus a bunch of "quality metrics" based on the records.

While these metrics are ostensibly intended to reflect the quality of the software and the progress of development, in fact they often have little connection to reality. This is because TLs can manipulate the records any way they please. If fixing a bug is inconvenient, they can instead close the bug report with any of a number of excuses--the bug can't be reproduced, it is caused by someone or something else, it has already been fixed, etc. It doesn't matter whether any of this is actually true, because the TLs themselves are the sole judges. Or, suppose a piece of development is in an abysmal state and the development record has many comments about its problems. Fixing the problems would take a lot of work, so instead, a TL can simply close the comments, allowing the development to move forward. It isn't bugs that matter; it's bug records. It isn't development that matters; it's development records.

So, the best employees, in Epic's view, are not those who do the best in completing high-quality development and fixing bugs, but those who are best at gaming the system.

When reality catches up and Epic's customers complain about broken or missing functionality, the TLs are of course immune from blame. One of the ways this is done is with frequent reassignment of TLs to different teams. I observed the following team-hopping cycle many times: A TL comes into a team with no understanding of that team's software or the problems with it. Due to their ignorance, they make poor decisions that cause more problems. By the time those problems have manifested in customers' production systems, the TL has already hopped to a different team. The next TL also has no understanding of the team's software or the problems caused by their predecessor. The cycle repeats.

In contrast to TLs, non-TLs often stay on the same team for many years. They know where the software has been, where it is now, and what challenges it faces. They are also the ones who get their hands dirty with actual development and testing, not just meetings and e-mails. But their knowledge is useless if the ones making the decisions are unwilling to hear it.

For example, I was once investigating a bug uncovered by our QA team. I found the source of the bug and figured out how to fix it, all of which turned out to be quite simple. The fix would require approval from the TL in charge of a certain part of the software. But when I discussed the matter with this individual, he disagreed and attempted to provide an alternative explanation of the problem. It was soon obvious not only that he did not understand the bug, but that his knowledge of Epic's software was very weak, despite his tenure of about 20 years. As I elaborated further and my interpretation of the bug--again, a fairly simple one--became increasingly difficult to refute, this individual ceased any attempt to do so, instead resorting to frequent interruptions, denials that the bug existed, and references to his long experience as proof of his infallibility. Ultimately, he refused to approve any fix. I attempted to escalate the matter with a number of other TLs, but no one wanted to rock the boat. Sure enough, customers began to suffer from this easily preventable bug. This is just one of many stories I could tell about how a TL's ego harmed Epic's customers.

Epic's upper management seems to have a vague awareness that there is a problem without really understanding what it is. To try to solve it, they endlessly shuffle around the company's internal processes. I witnessed countless changes to how development is tracked, how quality is measured, how projects advance, and just about every other aspect of the job. When one process inevitably fails to produce the desired result, management stumbles blindly into the next one, never stopping to weigh the pros and cons of each and to make a thoughtful decision.

The same applies to the technology used to build Epic's software; development TLs keep bouncing from one fad to the next. Typically, the only reason employees are given for such a change is that some other company, usually Microsoft, is doing it. One wonders: how is it working for that other company? Well or poorly? But this question is never asked; the mere fact that someone else is doing it is enough reason for Epic to mimic them. An old question asks whether, if your friends jumped off a cliff, you would too. For Epic's management, the answer is yes, if Microsoft jumped off a cliff, so would they.

One of the most obnoxious trends in Epic's ever-changing processes is the increase in micromanagement. If problems keep arising in the software and the TLs are blameless (which they always are), then surely it must be the fault of the non-TLs. So, their betters need to keep a closer eye on them to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to. By the time I left the company, employees were expected to report what they were doing in every 15-minute interval, each of which must be linked to a particular record in the company's development tracking system. 30 minutes on this piece of development, 45 minutes on that bug report, etc. There is no room for, say, reading to increase your knowledge, exploring the software to broaden your understanding, or experimenting with potential innovations. Independent thought is the province of a select few; everyone else is expected to be a mindless drone.

Therein lies the problem. It's not the processes; it's the people. Epic's management is infested with incompetence. The incentive structure facing TLs guarantees this outcome. An employee who closes lots of bug reports and advances lots of development is rewarded, even if he didn't fix the bugs or complete the development to a high standard. On the other hand, an employee who spends the time necessary to actually do the underlying work will no doubt look much worse under the company's metrics. It is common sense that you get more of what you reward and less of what you punish, so the current state of Epic is no surprise. The people with the intelligence to make good decisions have no authority to do so, while the people with authority have no intelligence.

As bad as all this is, I tolerated it for a while. Despite the culture of mediocrity, there were pockets of competence. I could still get some good work done, and the pay was fine. But in the last couple years, another problem has eclipsed the ineptitude of management: a moral rot that now pervades the company. It seems that the catalyst was the death by drug overdose of the now-infamous violent felon George Floyd. The CEO used this opportunity, as did so many others in the country, to vilify the police and to promote the Marxist terrorist organization Burn Loot Murder. Since then, employees have been subjected to a never-ending deluge of the same "diversity, inclusion, equity" propaganda that has overtaken so much of corporate America. We were reminded by speeches in every staff meeting and posters in every break room that the content of our character is irrelevant; only the color of our skin matters. Management began regularly preaching about their commitment to "diversity." What they mean, of course, is diversity of appearance; diversity of thought is out of the question. They want employees who look different from one another while holding the exact same beliefs. The company seemed to seek out every opportunity to appease the far left. For example, at a company-wide meeting, they displayed a slide echoing the far-left talking point that the US Capitol protest on January 6, 2021 was a "terrorist attack," yet they were utterly silent when BLM murdered six people and injured over fifty more in Waukesha, only 80 miles from Epic.

Management's far-left zealotry was not confined to lecturing us in meetings or putting up posters; it also affected our day-to-day work. The company undertook a massive project, involving thousands of man-hours from many teams, to eradicate any "offensive" language from the software lest it "trigger" someone. What were these bad words that we needed so urgently to get rid of? They were innocuous terms like "whitelist," which apparently is unacceptable because it contains the word white, which is the color of some people's skin and thus might be offensive to people with a different skin color (leftist reasoning can be difficult to follow). The company was so devoted to the cause that it even suspended the usual rules about what changes are allowed to be made. For example, Epic releases SQL tables to customers, who are able to create their own reports based on the tables. Because customers' reports depend on the column names in the tables, the column names are never supposed to be changed. But the company paused this rule, allowing the names to change even though customers were known to be using them. In other words, for the sole purpose of virtue signaling, Epic deliberately broke functionality that customers were relying on.

The worst came in the company's response to the Wuhan virus. It announced that it would fire anyone who did not take the experimental drugs being touted as "vaccines." This was long before any government mandate. According to Epic, an employee is not allowed to make their own medical decisions. If you're allergic to a component of the drug, you're fired. If you've gotten an organ or bone marrow transplant and your body can't tolerate the drug, you're fired. If you have a disease such as multiple sclerosis and you've been advised by your doctor not to take the drug, you're fired. If you simply don't buy into the covid hysteria and don't trust the people who have lied nonstop since the so-called "pandemic" began, you're fired. This ideology--that people should not be allowed to make their own decisions, which should instead be made for them by an unaccountable elite--is reflected in the company's recent work. Epic has collaborated with governments to create vaccine passports in order to discriminate against anyone who makes a medical decision the central planners don't agree with.

Naturally, the company also mandated useless face diapers, even before the government required it. After the CEO conducted a mass firing of the unjabbed (and insulted their intelligence at a company-wide meeting), the company was no longer required by the county's mask mandate to make employees wear masks, since the mandate had an exception for those who had gotten the jab. Yet the company claimed that some employees were still unjabbed, and so everyone had to keep wearing masks. How could this be, when the company had fired (and ceased hiring) anyone who hadn't gotten the jab, with no exemptions of any kind? Perhaps the unjabbed employees were fictitious, and were invented by the company so that it would have a pretext to continue requiring masks. Or, if these employees really existed, then the company lied about the jab mandate and gave exemptions to those specially favored by management. Either way, the company lied.

Epic's political extremism is not just in management; it also extends to many of the rank and file. When it was announced at a company-wide meeting that Epic would start doing business with Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion provider in the country, the news received a standing ovation. In the parking lots and on the roads near campus, it is common to see people wearing masks while sitting alone in their cars. Evidence is also readily seen on the job review websites. Despite Epic's embrace of wokism and covid cultism, there are many people complaining that the company has not gone far enough and needs to be even more extreme. I don't believe it's an accident that so many people like this have worked at Epic; the hiring department is selecting for these kinds of attitudes.

It is one thing to have my time wasted and to watch customers suffer due to inept management. But what I have seen recently is much worse: my work was being used for immoral purposes. I don't want to participate in medical apartheid. I don't want to help create an untouchable caste of second-class citizens. I don't want to elevate skin color and gender over character and merit. I don't want any part in the systematic slaughter of the unborn. Epic is actively working toward all of these reprehensible goals. To continue at the company would be to assist them, so I quit. I advise everyone with a conscience to stay away.