Epic Reviews

Pros

The people are great. Everyone I work with is friendly and helpful! As a software developer, the work is interesting and challenging. The roles that are less customer-facing (like software developers and quality managers) still get to interact with customers during immersion trips out to customer sites where we get to observe real people using the software and talk to them about what is and isn't working. I didn't really appreciate it until I went on my first immersion trip but after having been on one, I think that all software shops should consider incorporating immersion trips into their developers' jobs. The campus is beautiful and there is definitely a benefit to being able to talk a quick walk around to reset or give your mind a break. The food at the Verona headquarters is delicious and affordable. Epic is fairly well known, so if you ever need to leave Epic for one reason or another, you will still be very employable. Epic is a very large company with most of its staff in Verona, WI so if you don't like the team you are on, it's possible to request a team transfer (though obviously it's not guaranteed that a transfer will happen).

Cons

Internal documentation isn't always the most up to date or easy to find. If you want to regularly work from home, this is not the place for you. As mentioned in the Pros section, Epic is a very large company. As much as the leadership would like a consistent experience throughout the company, Epic is a company made up of people, and people are different from each other. Some people mesh well and others don't, regardless of how good of a people they are. The quality of one's experience at Epic (and likely any company) will be heavily influenced by one's Team Lead and to a lesser extent one's coworkers. This is great if you have a great TL and coworkers (as I do), but can be problematic if you get placed under or alongside people who you don't mesh with as well. People on LinkedIn see that you work at Epic and flood you with requests regardless of whether you specify that you aren't looking for job opportunities. Seriously, if you get a job at Epic, consider deactivating your LinkedIn account.

Pros

Good health care insurance, good people.

Cons

Tech stack is pretty old.

Pros

Good people, benefits, food, interesting campus, competitive salary. If you want to find a decent employer and work here until you retire, then there are definitely worse options. If you want to work for a year or two and then move on (such as to med school), this is also quite nice.

Cons

Old software, lots of legacy code, you will be very busy. Some departments are well managed, some are very poorly managed.

Pros

Autonomy, independence, culinary, cool campus

Cons

Blackbox management, upper management is out of touch

Pros

Salary is very good for an entry level position.

Cons

Will expose you to the nasty side of the healthcare industry. 60+ hour weeks are expected regularly. In my first month I was told by my manager that the 40-45 hour work week from the job description was a lie. I began working here under the impression that I would be doing 6-7 60+ hour weeks a year, but I was soon being asked to work in excess of 60 hours every other week. I could see that some of my coworkers had a more manageable workload, but I was given no explanation on why I was singled out to receive extra work when I asked. I was sent on significantly more travel (two and a half times the average) than my coworkers and received no additional compensation. You are required to sign a non-compete agreement which limits access to positions in the Healthcare IT space after leaving Epic. Most of the campus is a childish postmodern nightmare.

Pros

-Pay was good -High levels of responsibility/trust to work with senior folks at the hospital organization -Mission of helping patients and clinicians improve outcomes was actually palpable in most development/company goals -Coworkers really are great -Great healthcare

Cons

-Consensus from tenured Application Managers was that everyone was struggling and overworked; hours are more often insane than not (70-80 hours/week), and you're told by team leads to just 'ask for help' but the workload or organizational need is often customer-specific, and no one else on the app team actually has bandwidth or knowledge to actually take anything off your plate. -Revolving door of application coordinators, so as an application manager you have to train and retrain new hires who are getting thrown onto the project with no application/customer knowledge or project management skills. -Especially post-COVID, truly embarrassing approach to work-from-home with an artificial rationale of 'company culture' particularly for a role that pretty much sits on video calls for 9+ hours a day when in office while trying to answer emails in any given 5 minute break between calls -Culture around recovery time is wild--you may work 12 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday for a go-live (whether volunteer or for your own project), then get 1 day off as 'recovery' -No real growth path for strong application managers other than taking on more internal roles that you don't have time for

Pros

The campus keeps things interesting, good food, the benefits are good (including free stock that the company buys back from you when you leave), the company culture surrounding feedback creates a fairly safe space to give constructive criticism, and personally I liked the people I worked with.

Cons

Managers are encouraged to be hypercritical and employees are pushed to work 50+ hour weeks. It’s challenging to maintain work life balance. There’s little to no flexibility around work from home (you get 5 days per year for now plus extreme weather days). Diversity is not great (software developers were overwhelmingly male, teams I saw had less than 1 female developer for every 20 male ones)

Pros

Healthcare & benefits are unparalleled The campus is fun if you’re into that If you’re young & straight out of college, so is everyone else

Cons

You will be worked until you either quit or ask to work more. The job is tedious, boring, and seems fake. You spend hours just on the phone with “analysts” that work from home and want to do minimum work (& usually work ~20 hours a week). Management is old, out of touch, and love to bust unions and any employee suggestion. If you love IT, here you go. If you’re a tech grad & they tell you this is a great “tech” position, run. The pay is high, but if you’re working 50 hour work weeks, that hourly pay starts to look like trash.

Pros

The company truly takes care of its employees. Don't believe the talk of being overworked. Keep context in mind. Epic hires mostly fresh college graduates with an aptitude for learning and hopes that you will demonstrate that aptitude at the company. You will be thrown in the waters so to say, and Epic knows that many won't want to struggle to keep afloat while some others will learn to keep afloat and eventually swim. The ones that adapt will be rewarded handsomely over just 2-3 years of tenure whereas the ones that don't will walk away with some really good experience that they would've been hard-pressed to find elsewhere because of how much responsibility and freedom Epic gives you at entry level.

Cons

Madison is a medium size college town. You're either in the middle of university life or you're in a quiet suburban community. There really isn't a middle ground. If you are or can become used to this you'll enjoy its great food and fantastic people; if you enjoy the hustle and bustle of big city life, you'll miss those interactions and that energy.

Pros

The people are amazing. I love the campus, the food, the daily work, and the salary is fair.

Cons

I'm very tenured and have seen the company change precipitously for the worse. Upper MGMT/leadership has lost its way. CEO makes poor, erratic decisions and is out of touch. Dev leadership is toxic. I will quit the second my stock vests.