Epic Systems

Okay, you've read a few of these, so you know how great the campus, cafeteria, etc. are. That's all true -- as a work location, it's fantastic.

Compensation is really good: great health insurance, sabbatical is such a fun opportunity, and the pay is quite good for the Midwest.

Epic has a lot of process, but make a point of evaluating processes and making changes to them so that all of the process adds value. They routinely tweak what we're doing so that it isn't just busywork. Processes have completely disappeared.

They also actively work to make us more efficient, with new internal tools, speeding up our workflows, and in general, trying to improve our day-to-day work.

There's also great freedom in what you want to work on. You can get involved with so many different groups beyond your daily work -- helping with recruiting, user experience design, customer initiatives. You have to make your own way to do this, but if you do it, then it's a way to make your job more enjoyable.

In order to be successful at Epic, you really need to be able to draw boundaries and determine what you want to work on, especially as a software developer. It can become easy to stagnate as a software developer, and we don't have a clear growth path. You're not required to ever learn anything new, so if you want to get better as a developer and advance in your career, there's no infrastructure to guide you; you need to do things on your own.

The only formal growth path is to be a team lead, which isn't for everyone (including some people who are made TLs). It is also hard to get into being a decision-maker for your application without becoming a team lead. That's not to say that there aren't ways to grow, just that you need to do it yourself.

Work-life balance isn't something that is valued at Epic. Judy works a ton, and that culture permeates the entire company. Some teams have persistent "late nights" because of bad project planning and making commitments that are unrealistic. It is so easy to burn out.

I was fortunate to be on a team where I could make the case that, after six months of 10+ hour days and often weekends, I was burned out. I asked if they wanted me to keep working like that or if they wanted me to work less and be more productive. But I had to take the initiative to make that case, and I know that my team lead is getting pushback since I only average 8.5 hours per day.

Epic is obsessive with tracking your time, making you track every 15-minute increment you work and what you're working on. It is insane. They now want me to formally put in our intranet system if I'm leaving for an hour to go see my dentist. Big brother is watching you.

Epic has some weird and inconsistent policies. For example, you have the opportunity to take unpaid time off. That's advertised as: "It's your time to choose whether or not to take it." Team leads are supposed to treat it like normal vacation, and it isn't supposed to be penalized in any way. However, they then have restrictions for those who take unpaid time in order to go on a sabbatical with another Epic employee (such as their spouse).

There have also been some questionable things in recent all-company meetings, including overtly partisan political statements, a pornography term, and non-clinical descriptions of genitals. These are inappropriate for a work environment, but the culture here has been going more and more this way over my time here.

Burnt-out employees aren't as effective. Don't be so obsessive with time; be obsessive over quality and effectiveness.