I want to preface this section by letting you know that I am not a disgruntled employee who was let go. I put in my resignation after a few years at Epic and was given the opportunity to stay or boomerang back. When I saw the negative reviews of Epic as a senior in college, I ignored them because I thought they must have been written by employees who had been fired. This is not the case of this review.
1. No work-life balance - really. If you are IS, you will be traveling anywhere from 25 (highly unlikely) to 100% of the time, with an average of 75%. If you want to have friends or date, you might as well throw that out of the window because you will never be in Madison frequently enough to have either. If, on the off chance, you are in town, there is a very high chance that the people you want to spend time with are traveling. Also, your entire life outside of work will revolve around Epic - the people you hang out with, the people you meet, the people you live with. It's a bit of a joke that Epic employees find little other than Epic to talk about, even when they're not at work.
2. You are responsible for lying to your customers' faces as a representative of Epic. They are paying a high hourly rate for new IS to work on their project. However, training only covers a small percentage of the knowledge necessary for a successful install. You will be the one telling them if something is possible, the best way to modify the software to meet the needs of their clinical workflow, and resolving issues all while not knowing the actual answers. Sure, you'll have an AM, but chances are that these are individuals who have terrible management skills (see point 4) or who are too busy with their other customers to give you the time you need to know what you need to know. This is a very common complaint that I have heard from IS, new TS, trainers, and QA.
3. Poor preparation. The first two months at Epic will consist of classes that will teach you the most basic information about your role and software application. After you are certified (if you are lucky - many people get staffed within their first month at Epic), you will be thrown on to a customer with the expectation that you are an expert (again, see point 2). The training you receive will rarely cover what you are expected to know and share with a customer as an expert in the system (This may sound confusing. Let me give you an example. Let's say that you are a new AC for the Clinical Documentation application. Your customer reaches out and says they want to create Lab Smartlinks. They want to know how and which labs are commonly made into smartlinks. You probably don't know what Lab Smartlinks are as you read this right now, right? Well, you won't know what they are after your certified and are charging you customer up the ass to be their expert either).
4. Poor management. The way to climb the ladder here is not based on merit - again, promotions and raises here are not based on merit. They are based on your ability to show how much you "drink the kool aid." If you want to move into management positions (AM, IC, TL), you HAVE to publicly show that you love the company, the product, and everything surrounding Epic. Don't even think about providing any constructive criticism about the company - you'll get a terrible bonus, if you get one at all, regardless of how much work you have put in the company. As a result, the management at Epic is not merit-based, but rather a group of people who either believe or pretend to believe that the company is perfection. They have very little to no leadership skills. They also receive basic (and in my opinion, laughable) training for their leadership roles. A majority of my friends and I experienced AMs (the person in your application who is supposed to be your supervisor on your project) yell at us for "asking too many questions," ignore our emails/phone calls/texts, or throw us under the boat (I did not personally experience this, but I know several others who did. Oftentimes, this occurred when the customer was unhappy and the AM or IC needed a scapegoat). AMs are often ACs who have been through one complete install, and are themselves not very experienced - look again to point 2. Turnover is so high at Epic that I found it uncommon to find someone who had been at Epic for more than 2 years (You'll be hard-pressed to find people who have been here for more than 4, which also bothered me. What does it say about a company that is 35 years old, but has only a small percentage of employees that have been here for even 5 years?).
5. Complete lack of transparency. Please do not mistake this as me saying that there is little transparency. There really is NO transparency. TLs are figure-heads who do not have much say in your career path (unless they dislike you, in which case, you'll be lucky if you are fired quickly) and do not understand your promotions or bonuses. These decisions are made by parties unknown to you, your TL, or even the lead of your application or role (I can state this as a fact because there were several questions that none of these individuals could answer for me when I was an employee).
6. You live in Madison. This could be a pro or con depending on who you are - that's why this is at the bottom. For the small percentage of the time that you are actually in Madison (see point 1), there are a few things to consider. The first is that there is very little diversity in Madison - cultural, SES, activities, restaurants, etc. You will be in a town with mostly white people who are either in college or work at Epic (although, I will congratulate you greatly if you manage to make "ex-Epic friends"), where most of the activities on the weekend involve the same 10 dingy college bars. However, the farmer's market is amazing, but it's really the only good thing about Madison. Some people love Madison though, so again, it's a pro or a con. But, do your research and visit before committing to live here.
Please think very carefully before taking a position with Epic. I know that they're throwing money at you, but it's not worth it. A lot of the people I knew at Epic were miserable and had to start taking medication for depression and anxiety while working there. I would never recommend Epic to anyone.
