Pros
- Salary/benefits are good right out of college, especially if you have a less marketable degree, at least it will be good for the first few years. I've learned a lot from this job and I know I will take away a lot of experience from it. - I thought the work was interesting. I really enjoyed working with my customers, but maybe I got lucky and snagged a good customer team. - My TL (manager) was great, but that's also luck of the draw. He gave me a lot of flexibility and left it up to me to decide what I wanted to do and what side projects I would like to pursue. - Most of my co-workers were competent, bright, and fun. It's a young vibe, and I made some good friends here. - Everyone knows about Epic. Seems like the whole town is either Epic of UW students. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. - Overall, I cared a lot about my job, and I really liked what I was doing. I want the company and my customers to succeed. Coming into the job, I was cynical based on all of these negative reviews I read, but my experience has been mostly positive, and I ain't drank no kool-aid. Take these reviews with a grain of salt.
Cons
- Processes. I get why they are there as a way to streamline the company, but the entire company is way over-processed. At times I felt like I was spending more time creating/following protocols than achieving anything. Even time logging was tedious and took 30-45 minutes a week to document, in which I had to document that I spent x minutes logging time. Every time we talk about processes during meetings, I have to focus really hard on the projector screen to keep my eyes from rolling. Epic wants to develop a metric for everything but there are always cases that cannot be quantified in a report, etc... - Everyone seems to rag on the hours (even those outside of Epic would tell me Epic works you hard) but it depends on your application and role. I worked long hours to complete things during training, long hours every once in awhile after that, and at times I felt compelled to check my mail and work at home. Some weeks are super busy, others are slow. It's not your typical 40 hour week, but most jobs paying this salary range aren't. - It takes a certain type of person to really flourish here. There's a somewhat competitive atmosphere, and most people don't want to feel like they are lagging behind or working less than others. Since you don't meet with your direct lead often, others' feedback and being perceived as competent is weighed more than being actually competent. This may be a con for many, because the job can be too frustrating for some, but I'm naturally kind of intense so it didn't really bother me. - Most people don't know what they are doing and documentation is somewhat lacking. You get thrown into very complicated scenarios with the software when you first start, and you will not understand much, but you are still expected to support the customer. The first months with a customer was very difficult and they almost drove me to tears during our calls when they demanded things I didn't understand. The vast majority of the knowledge lies within a few veterans on each team, and those veterans get bombarded with so many meeting requests and questions. You will have little guidance unless you can demand help, know how to make the right connections, and/or think quickly/work hard to figure stuff out. A lot of the best work I've done was actually a result of me bothering other people to get it done for me because I didn't know how to do it on my own. - The culture can be stifling. You will hear the catch phrases "rock star", "escalate", "badger", etc all the time. Epic touts its nerdy side as well. Staff meetings are kind of weird. I felt like they were force-feeding skewed information to us at times, especially a presentation on how carbs were terrible for you. I'm consuming sugar as I write this. Take these reviews with a grain of salt, or sugar in my case.