Pros
- Meaningful work: Epic creates electronic health records software for more than two-thirds of the nation's patients, so you're working to improve patient care all around the nation. - Great coworkers: The people I worked with were often understanding and supportive, and helped me learn the ropes even when I was struggling. - Great starter job: Epic does a lot of onboarding and training, which is good for someone fresh out of college, and the blind approach to degree and experience (there's a personality assessment and hiring skills test) means that the salary/benefits are great for a new grad. - Beautiful campus and benefits: Epic is famous for its quirky campus design, culinary outlets, and rural aesthetic. Employees are often flanked by curious tourists when traveling to work. Large conventions held every year to promote collaboration between healthcare organizations all across America.
Cons
- Senior leadership: The CEO is, while not as egotistical as your average late-stage capitalism, deep-pocketed tech overlord, is significantly out of touch with the rest of the company. Despite being a healthcare technology company, Epic fought hard against travel restrictions and remote work as COVID-19 spread across America, and put employees at risk by forcing everyone back into the office as cases were spiking in Dane County, generating embarrassing amounts of negative press. - Emphasis on culture: Continued from the previous point. Epic's emphasis on employees "saving lives" warps the perception of everyday work to be less a job and more of a calling. As the self-proclaimed heroes of the healthcare industry, employees are expected to give their all to help healthcare organizations, even if that means after-hours calls or putting in 60-hour weeks. The cult-like atmosphere creates a culture of overwork best described in the word "voluntold". - Steep adjustment slope. New hires are essentially useless up until the 6 month mark, as there is a sizable list of certifications, badges, and projects one must complete before being considered a competent Epic employee. However, new hires receive their full customer loads at only the two or three month mark, where they are expected to provide fully-fledged support to multiple large healthcare organizations as they are scrambling to finish their certifications. This often comes with a push from a manager to take on additional projects within the company, such as development projects or specialist (workgroup) roles. This new avalanche of responsibilities, as well as the resulting exponential increase in stress, had me feeling like I was working two jobs - half-Epic employee, half-therapist for friends sobbing through work-induced panic attacks and emotional breakdowns. There is a large spike in quits between the six month and 1.5 year mark, but after that point it stabilizes. Long-term employees are often the happiest, as they've accumulated the necessary knowledge base for the job and can answer questions with ease.
