Epic reviews

No respect for employees; all seen as expendable, 20-25% fired per year. Only response to customer complaints is to fire people, then hire unexperienced replacements. 55+ hours minimum expected of TS; only measure of work quality is number of hours. Employment agreement precludes working in software for one year after they fire you. Team leads clueless; completely inconsistent styles of "management"; no consensus. Emphasis on being family-friendly is two-faced; if you take time off for family matters you'll probably get fired for it. No support for growing as an employee or in career; only support for working more hours. No emphasis on spending time for employee development, only for taking on more tasks for which you are not prepared. Training is a joke and does not address what will be needed to work with customers, nor what it will take to support an Epic application. Only employees to use the cafeteria are new hires; once training is over you might have time to get a meal 'to-go', but plan to make that time up after hours. No telecommute allowed, even if a blizzard hits and your street is unplowed all day (you'll have to take vacation time). Most employees are in shared offices despite promises to the contrary. The work environment is not open or cooperative, as everyone is in their tiny offices, with their doors closed, stressing about how not to get fired (or divorced, should they be unfortunate enough to have a family at home wondering if they'll ever come home).

The recruiting process seemed dishonest to me. During the interview process, I was shown two or three of Epic's nicest buildings on their Verona campus, and when I was hired, I was stuck in a much less impressive building in an entirely different location far away from the beautiful Verona campus. I also was not given a very clear picture of what my job responsibilities would be before I started, so some of my responsibilities came as a shock on my first day. The recruiting process also does not allow potential employees to meet with existing team members/team leaders to see if there is a fit. I did not even know what my team leader's name was until my first day, and I did not meet her until my second or third day. Work/life balance at Epic is minimal to nonexistent. My team leader (TL) told me that a large percentage of Epic employees work 50+ hours per week. If you are only working 40-45 hours per week it is taken as a sign that you are either lazy or underworked, and you will be assigned more responsibilities. It also seems that Epic cares about the customer at the expense of the employee - customers are treated like kings but employees are treated like second-class citizens. A common philosophy presented at the monthly staff meetings is "DUET" (Difficult for Us, Easy for Them). In my experience, middle management at Epic is very cutthroat and difficult to deal with. My TL was an extreme example of a micro-manager and was constantly berating my performance even though my customers were all satisfied (as far as I knew) with the support I was providing. I found that there is little to no recourse if you have difficulties getting along with your TL, because subordinates generally do not have the opportunity to contribute feedback when a TL receives a performance review. Additionally, if you wish to transfer to another department, your TL has to sign off on the transfer. So, if your TL doesn't "like" you, they seem to have the power to prevent you from transferring to another department. When I expressed interest in transferring to a development team, I was told that Epic only hires "the best of the best" for development, and that my performance was not good enough to enter development (so, in essence, they told me I was too stupid for development.)