Epic reviews

- horrible work-life balance: expected to work late nights, weekends, no questions asked - constant travel, often to pretty lame places - especially with constant travel, flying into Madison can be a nightmare - often the first flights that are canceled, and you can't fly anywhere except MSP, ORD, DTW, and MKE without making a connection - TLs often have no idea what they're doing - clients can be horrible and interacting with them is often like babysitting - lots of hand-holding and taking the blame for things that they do wrong - the often-collegiate-like atmosphere leads to similarly collegiate drama (people dating/sleeping together/etc) and lots of gossip - because they hire almost exclusively straight out of college, it's difficult to really understand the larger context of the field

- Abysmal work-life balance. 45 hrs/week is expected most of the time, but around deadlines expect more like 60. But even if only working 45-50 a week, somehow Epic creeps into your brain and you're thinking of the job all the time. - Disgruntled/overworked coworkers. Morale frequently seemed low. - Middle-management has limited to no management experience. Some people excel, while others are real duds. Senior management seems more organized and with-it. No real complains about senior management. - Go-live support is required at least twice a year. That's 12-hour shifts, on your feet, with grumpy doctors and nurses, for two-four days. It's painful. - Limited career advancement, both at company and outside. QAer can advance once, maybe twice, then you're really in the top of the pyramid. And if you chose to leave Epic, you'll find your QA experience doesn't translate well to most other places because Epic really does things its own way. - Big takeaway: Epic plays the game how it wants to. It uses old languages and doesn't implement many other industry-standard tools that a QAer would need to get in the door at other companies. Epic tends to hire the very young, and I think it's because the company wants complete control over the forming of a new project manager, QAer, tech support person, etc.