Epic Systems

Good pay, decent benefits, subsidized sabbatical, occasional travel, writing code that helps save lives, learning about healthcare. That’s about it!

Having your own office might be nice for some, but it creates a culture of isolation. I found myself calling a teammate on the phone while this person was sitting across the wall from me!

No social events (except one in the summer).

Their organization is left up to the teams. And even when they are organized, people feel weird hanging out with each other because they are not used to it. Some teams do better than others at it, though.

No alcohol is allowed at social events, even if a team goes for lunch and dinner somewhere on their own dime, even on weekends, so any attempts to have a good team-building activity are failing because we are bound by Epic rules. This forces people to organize in cliques so they can hang out, drink, and have fun, and not be “perceived” as Epic employees.

Some teams are more casual and hang out wherever they want and don’t mind drinking and talking about work. Even the president of Epic, Carl Dvorak, called Epic culture “fake” during his 25-year employment anniversary address (he had to apologize later via email for the wrong word choice).

The technology is so customized that your knowledge is barely transferable outside of the company: Visual Basic 6 (still, it’s 2017!!), Cache (MUMPS) that is probably still supported only because Epic uses it (not transferable either). Some of the half-lucky ones use Objective-C and Java for mobile development (I’m saying half-lucky because you’re still writing nearly half of your code in Cache, and because only one out of the two major mobile teams - Haiku - is good.

It’s more chill as far as culture goes and it’s usually on the cutting-edge technology. This is because they are serving physicians, who usually own the newest iPhones. The other one - Rover - writes applications for hospital-owned devices that are low-spec. Plus the team works long hours and never hangs out. Innovations usually happen on Haiku, and Rover just adopts it).

There are also web teams that use HTML, CSS, Java Script, and C# (don’t expect to use any third-party frameworks like AngularJS, Node.js, React, Rails), but that experience is barely transferable because Epic builds its own frameworks. Also, by the time they are done building them, the industry is 3-5 years ahead.

Work-life balance doesn’t exist: Epic CEO Judy Faulkner said she doesn’t like this phrase. There is “work-life integration,” she said, advising to take care of work things in your free time, and allowing to take care of personal things during work time. Still, it seldom works, as each employee has to log time every 15 minutes (which a lot of people hate). This practice is unheard of in software industry leaders like Google and Amazon.

Prepare to log at least 45 hours a week. This means you really need to work at least 50 hours because you can’t log reading industry news or read up on new technology during the hours you log. Pretty much, if you are taking a long break, you can’t log it (your metrics will hurt otherwise, and you will hear from your team lead, “Why did it take this long?”). Also, if everyone on your team logs 50-55 hours a week and you log just 45, you complete fewer tasks than other people and will hurt your metrics (which affects your raise, bonus, and can get you fired based on performance). Judy said once, “Everyone is replaceable,” that’s how Epic takes care of their employees.

Note on family friendliness: no benefits for new parents outside of the federally mandated ones - you have to use your sick or vacation time. The teams are not forgiving. I know at least one employee who had a baby and went to work part-time in about a week and came back full-time in another week or two. The demands are high. The fact that you have a family means nothing.

Conclusion: Epic doesn’t give a crap about employee happiness. Unless you love healthcare or you’re introverted, choose another place!

There are too many things to change. Sell the technology (and only the technology) to someone else and let them pick it up and continue with a better approach that treats employees as adults and values them.