Epic Systems

The total compensation and benefits are fantastic for the Midwest. I made six figures out of college (bachelor's degree). I currently make the same in Seattle, WA, at a different large tech company, but the benefits are not as good here, and rent is higher.

If you contribute enough or work hard enough, your manager might be cool with you moving around and working on whatever projects you want. There's lots to work on, from healthcare to billing to mobile apps and web apps, etc.

You usually get your own office, or share with one to two other people.

Great food on campus.

Beautiful campus and surrounding area, especially in the summer. In winter, it goes below 0 Fahrenheit and snows/ices over quite a lot.

Pretty flexible hours, but they might vary by your manager.

I didn't stay long enough to be promoted, but the criteria were pretty clear.

Bad work-life balance in most places, I think, especially in clinical applications. Long hours were an accepted part of the culture. Managers justified it by saying we needed to do it for our patients and customers.

Lack of manager training and empathy for their direct reports. My last manager constantly pressured our team to work harder and fired people who resisted.

Lots of doctors and nurses absolutely hate using Epic's software since it is bulky and confusing. There are so many buttons they have to click in their workflow. I think this is partly because we didn't do much workflow testing with users and get feedback. (Execs tend to love Epic, though.)

You might get called outside of work if there is an urgent issue to be fixed (e.g., safety). It is hard to get away from work completely because there is peer pressure to make yourself available to respond to these situations.