Pros
Epic does do some things right: * The buildings (the art especially) makes the campus a fun place to work. * There are many opportunities to grow your skills -- classes, a professional development fund, and seminars on campus -- so you can improve yourself if you want to. * Team leads typically strike a good balance between keeping you focused and on-track without looking over your shoulder. * Cafeteria food is good -- if/when you can get it (more on the food service down below).
Cons
Where to start? * The monthly staff meeting is pretty fun and harmless until you draw the inevitable connection to "two minutes' hate" from 1984. Staff meetings don't distribute any information that wouldn't make more sense to tell people at team-level meetings. They only exist to keep people drinking the kool-aid as much as possible. * Epic isn't growing as fast as it needs to grow, so everyone is stretched too thin. This is a major reason why people voluntarily leave. Even if you're able to complete everything that's mandatory on the specified timeline, there's no way you can complete everything that really should be done to fulfill Epic's obligation to the customer. This leaves you feeling like you've got a to-do list miles long that you'll never have any hope of completing -- unless, of course, you come in early and stay late nearly every day. * Epic frequently "culls" its employees, often finding sneaky ways to make them leave. They find creative ways to label these departures to manipulate their turnover statistics. * Epic has extremely strict social/alcohol policies. For example, if you're out with a group of Epic employees after work and it's obvious you're from Epic, they don't want anyone to consume any alcohol. Even if you're out on your own time. Also, team leads are never allowed to have any alcoholic beverage with their employees. * Epic doesn't have a gym, child-care services, or other amenities that a company its size should have. They claim that they do this so that local businesses will get more customers, but it's really just a way for them to cut corners. * Epic's cafeteria is great, and that's something they like to show off when they bring people in for interviews. While the food really is stellar -- I can't fault them there -- they currently have a cafeteria meant to serve 1500-2000 people serving closer to 6000. Getting lunch is an absolute nightmare and usually involves standing in at least four lines. The layout makes it extremely difficult to navigate. Also, if you work more than one or two buildings away from the cafeteria, it takes a significant amount of time -- half an hour or more -- to get there, get food, and get back to your office. If you need to do anything other than eating on top of that, you're going to be staying very, very late. * There is a major culture gap between people who have worked at Epic for 5-10 years or more and people who have started in the last few years. They don't have the same expectations or understanding. It feels like there are many policies and ways of thinking left over from when Epic was a much smaller company, and the tenured employees don't seem to understand that a company should change as it experiences rapid growth.
