Epic Systems

Great amenities on campus (not during a pandemic). Food is cheap and amazing.

The team I directly work with was full of great and intelligent coworkers. Definitely had a helpful community in my immediate workgroup.

Compensation is good for the area, and there is a very comprehensive health plan.

Good place to introduce yourself to the industry or pivot to software development.

Valuable work and ability to interact with end users.

Work-life balance is okay for my role; typically put in ~45 hours a week.

Campus is really nice with the themed buildings, and you get a true office. I believe they are trending towards everyone having an individual office.

Plenty of opportunities to travel (role dependent).

Very casual dress code in the office environment.

Plenty of educational resources available.

Opportunities to get involved in stuff outside your core responsibilities, such as promoting social causes and internal activities.

Internal development tools and resources are pretty useful.

The company's COVID-19 response was incredibly irresponsible, reactionary, and patronizing until PHMDC and the local and national media got involved. Employees were not listened to, gaslit, and censored if providing organized feedback via internal avenues. Improvements to the policy always came last minute without proper notice after local legislation mandated additional measures.

Vacation policy is lacking relative to the tech industry. Sabbatical is effectively back-loaded vacation.

Anti-labor, see Epic vs. Lewis. Additionally, the COVID-19 response changed just as unionization began getting discussed and worker advocacy groups began getting involved.

Training is hit or miss if it will actually prepare you for what you will be working on. You may end up needing to teach yourself or completely relearn proper development depending on how different your focus will be.

Very ambiguous to what the culture exactly is and how they intend to promote it. Claims to be about encouraging feedback, but incredible lack of transparency regarding pandemic response. Many feared retaliation for dissenting, and based on reports from the media, they were justified.

Other roles have less support with work-life balance and have to regularly put in 50+ hour weeks.

Poor transparency when it comes to internal rankings (used to determine raises) and company policies. During training, I was told not to discuss salary with others, which only benefits the company.

Limited managerial growth opportunities, lack of external position levels (they have internal analogues to SD I, II, etc.), and a fairly outdated tech stack may inhibit career growth.

What you put up with is what you stand for. Listen to your employees and experts when deciding policy and improve transparency.

The COVID-19 response was only brought to the media once all other internal avenues were exhausted, and it shows that Epic was finally willing to change course only after investigation from public health and bad PR.

The industry is changing (for the better), and I anticipate bigger fish to get involved shortly. So, Epic will need to change course if it wants to maintain its head start and competitive edge.

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." - Warren Buffett