那我也就趁机展开说说Epic# JobHunting - 待字闺中
z*a
1 楼
这是我当年离开Epic时写的，本来想在Glassdoor上发表，但是censor没过，后来懒得
理这种烂公司，就束之高阁了；今天看到＜那我就展开说说Epic＞一文，颇有感触，拿
出来发表了先；
有点忙，有时间再写中文版的。当然，我当时是在Epic比较烂的组，因此可以视为Epic
中情况比较差的，其实大部分的中国人都是把Epic当旅店，住个１年半载的就飞去G、M
、A甚至更好的地方去了，看人。
"Maybe one of the worst choices for developers"
Pros:
1. Nice base salary at start in local;
2. Always hiring regardless of job market;
3. Easy to get offer even you have very weak background in programming/
system;
4. Nice office;
5. Cheap and nice lunch, free juice and free coffee;
6. Most new hires are young;
7. It's possible to do Epic Consulting after leaving Epic;
8. Up to 6 months training (usually not that long but still a few months,
varies);
9. Your work and life there highly depends on your manager and team, if you
are in a good team or have a nice manager, it is happy;
10. Very good health insurance;
Cons:
1. Ice-Age programming language-Visual Basic:
(1) This might be the worst news for developers: the longer you stay/the
more you work, the less value you worth in the job market: who will hire a
guy with 5 year experience ONLY in VB?
(2) Their technologies and knowledge are only useful within Epic, meaning
that if you lose your job, you have to start from zero. Especially
considering the Epic-style job security (see later Cons), many guys have to
leave Epic for various reasons;
2. Lying and cheating during hiring:
(1) when interviewing/orientation, they will tell you they use not only VB
but also other languages, that's not 100% wrong but 95% or more work is done
in VB, are you sure you are the lucky less 5%?
(2) They are going to migrate to C# or .NET. Yes, that's true for over the
past 6 years, but still can't achieve the goal: they care little about the
migration, with only less than 1% developers doing that.
(3) Another lie is about the "TLG": they require EVERYONE to keep record of
what you do (called "TLG") base on unit of a quarter of hour, claiming that
it's ONLY for customer billing purpose without ANY relation to your
performance evaluation nor tracking how you work, but that's COMPLETELY a
lie: my manager asked/told me: "What do you do in these 45 mintues last
Tuesday? Why this work takes 3 hours? You need to put more hours, 47 hours
per week is not enough according to your TLG." .etc. What's worse is that:
only saying "meeting" or "developing" is not enough, you have to provide
which log/branch you are dealing with, so many senior developers in Epic are
used to keeping open an Excel Sheet to record what they do every 15 mintues
- do you like it? I don't: I'm sorry I'm developer, not slave.
(4) Even in Glassdoor.com, Epic HRs are writing some "Excellent" comments as
QA or some role but it looks completely no-sense for those who have once
worked in Epic.
3.Micro-management:
(1) TLG is an excellent example. See 2.(3)
(2) Some managers even have a group meeting every morning and if you can't
finish your ticket before noon you need to tell that manager - of course,
that manager loses most of the team members in two years. To be honest, only
some of them has extreme micro-management, but you don't know who will be
your manager.
(3) By the way, some teams allow no change of team, stay in the team or
leave Epic.
4.About money: only base salary is good;
(1) little bonus;
(2) No RSU;
(3) Salary increase is small and it's not based on how much you work nor
performance (it seems to be on team and your base salary, just my guess)
(4) Poor 401K; have to work 5 years to get all your money back;
5. Minimum vacation, holiday and sick leave:
(1) Min vacation (10 days), holiday (6.5 days) and sick leave (6 days) in
large companies;
(2) No work from home, forget about it, even during blizzard;
(3) Tips: don't use sick leave since your manager will consider you going to
an onsite interview because...that's usually true;
6."Blame" culture, very political;
(1) For every bug you fix, you have to "point out" whose development cause
the bug (from technical perspective sometimes it's really ridiculous,lol);
you could ignore this, but they will keep in record;
(2) If you change some pieces of code, even has nothing to do with a future/
later bug, others will come to blame you for the future/later bug: "You are
the responsible person!". You even have to be responsible for the 10-year-
old and buggy code because your name is listed as the last edit;
(3) Many developers/managers are trying to "prove" the bugs should be fixed
by other developers/teams. It's annoying but easy to understand: if you do
the fix, the future trouble will come to you.
(4) When you make an error, say you fail to fix a bug or a small feature
fails, usually not your fault (system is too complex, the workflow is not
clear or the existing structure is poorly designed), you are the ONLY ONE
who should be responsible for that. There is a meeting specially for you,
talking about everything - that's OK, but others, QAs, your manager, and
other related guys are all free of duty! You (who put name on that
developing) are the only one to be blamed. Even a project fails, it is one
of the developers rather than the project leader, to be responsible for all
the failure and be kicked out of the company.
7. Very buggy system, and old code;
(1) Visual Basic should be responsible for large amount of bugs. Epic
amazingly builds and maintains its huge system using only VB, but you
developers have to pay for the miracle: more and more bugs are recorded
nowadays since the system is keeping on growing, while Epic is always
refusing to change the programming language (partially due to politics, and
also impossibility);
(2) Old codes: it's not uncommon to see codes in 90s; some codes are
rewritten but others are not; at early time, as a startup, Epic has poor
coding standard and regulation so the function name may even be A, B, C, D,
X or similar. It's a pain to see that kinds of code.
(3) Due to very high turn-over rate of developers, many codes, even less
than 3 years old, are impossible to find the writer or even someone who
could understand that.
8. Very high turnover rate;
(1) it's about 20% (my estimation and observation) of the whole company, all
the roles, seems to be not that high;
(2) Actually it's much higher than that for you new hires, because many
seniors won't leave (they also CAN not due to poor/limited technical skills);
(3) I don't know the turnover rate for all developers, but some teams has 30
%-55% turnover rate per year. That seems to be crazy, but it IS true: that's
the reason why developers in Epic are under pressure and very frustrated:
seeing most of your friends and co-workers leave, and have to take over the
work they've left as extra;
(4) High turnover rate leaves buggy code, poor and inconsistant design, and
unfinished projects, which cost more trouble for the developers who stay;
9. "Young developers are hard-work and cheap!"
(1) I'm really unhappy with the attitude Epic treats developers;
(2) They value little about your developing work. Even you are doing good,
they ask for more; when you can't achieve, you have to leave;
(3) There is no award for loyalty (a mug is not enough, right?): the longer
you stay here, they tend to replace you with young developers who has lower
salary, "Everybody can do this easy developing in VB!" said someone. Thus, I
saw many seniors that are worrying about losing their job.
(4) They hire few senior developers from other companies. In other words,
all seniors are Epic-oriented. This leads poor design and many management
problems.
10. Long working hours/poor work/life balance;
(1) Offer letter says 45-50 hours per week; (usually 40 in other companies)
(2) Some teams are even longer: 60-70 hours to survive;
(3) Some teams are not that high, about 40-45 hours;
11. Poor QAs;
(1) Epic QAs are new graduates, some of which even from top tier
universities, but majors in music, history or some other arts; they have
little idea about Software nor Engineering;
(2) However, they will produce (or have to produce) lots of tickets for you
developers to fix, and they usually require you to do much work to help them
- you have to do that, otherwise they have the right to give you trouble,
and you can't complain;
12. Soviet-style management culture;
(1) Unlike other IT companies, Epic has Soviet-style culture: if you
disagree with your manager, usually you have to leave; I saw a hard-working
8-year senior had to left in two weeks because he disagreed with his 3-year
manager in technical stuffs;
(2) If you are manager (they call "Team Lead"), you will be pretty happy,
though; even you make mistakes, you could blame your team members;
(3) How they select manager from new hire is unknown;
13. Growing worse for developers;
(1) At the beginning, Epic is not treating developers this bad;
(2) It seems from around 2007, Epic is becoming increasingly tough to
developers;
14. Madison, WI;
(1) Too cold in winter;
(2) Not many other IT companies; if you lose your job, it's hard to find the
next;
15. CEO bad-mouth competitors and brag;
(1) CEO said competitors' product just "can't use", and keep on saying that;
(2) CEO said Epic could be compared to Amazon, Google or Microsoft, but
actually Epic is like a big start-up, far away from those tops;
Suggestion to Management:
Treat developers better, at least not as slaves.
理这种烂公司，就束之高阁了；今天看到＜那我就展开说说Epic＞一文，颇有感触，拿
出来发表了先；
有点忙，有时间再写中文版的。当然，我当时是在Epic比较烂的组，因此可以视为Epic
中情况比较差的，其实大部分的中国人都是把Epic当旅店，住个１年半载的就飞去G、M
、A甚至更好的地方去了，看人。
"Maybe one of the worst choices for developers"
Pros:
1. Nice base salary at start in local;
2. Always hiring regardless of job market;
3. Easy to get offer even you have very weak background in programming/
system;
4. Nice office;
5. Cheap and nice lunch, free juice and free coffee;
6. Most new hires are young;
7. It's possible to do Epic Consulting after leaving Epic;
8. Up to 6 months training (usually not that long but still a few months,
varies);
9. Your work and life there highly depends on your manager and team, if you
are in a good team or have a nice manager, it is happy;
10. Very good health insurance;
Cons:
1. Ice-Age programming language-Visual Basic:
(1) This might be the worst news for developers: the longer you stay/the
more you work, the less value you worth in the job market: who will hire a
guy with 5 year experience ONLY in VB?
(2) Their technologies and knowledge are only useful within Epic, meaning
that if you lose your job, you have to start from zero. Especially
considering the Epic-style job security (see later Cons), many guys have to
leave Epic for various reasons;
2. Lying and cheating during hiring:
(1) when interviewing/orientation, they will tell you they use not only VB
but also other languages, that's not 100% wrong but 95% or more work is done
in VB, are you sure you are the lucky less 5%?
(2) They are going to migrate to C# or .NET. Yes, that's true for over the
past 6 years, but still can't achieve the goal: they care little about the
migration, with only less than 1% developers doing that.
(3) Another lie is about the "TLG": they require EVERYONE to keep record of
what you do (called "TLG") base on unit of a quarter of hour, claiming that
it's ONLY for customer billing purpose without ANY relation to your
performance evaluation nor tracking how you work, but that's COMPLETELY a
lie: my manager asked/told me: "What do you do in these 45 mintues last
Tuesday? Why this work takes 3 hours? You need to put more hours, 47 hours
per week is not enough according to your TLG." .etc. What's worse is that:
only saying "meeting" or "developing" is not enough, you have to provide
which log/branch you are dealing with, so many senior developers in Epic are
used to keeping open an Excel Sheet to record what they do every 15 mintues
- do you like it? I don't: I'm sorry I'm developer, not slave.
(4) Even in Glassdoor.com, Epic HRs are writing some "Excellent" comments as
QA or some role but it looks completely no-sense for those who have once
worked in Epic.
3.Micro-management:
(1) TLG is an excellent example. See 2.(3)
(2) Some managers even have a group meeting every morning and if you can't
finish your ticket before noon you need to tell that manager - of course,
that manager loses most of the team members in two years. To be honest, only
some of them has extreme micro-management, but you don't know who will be
your manager.
(3) By the way, some teams allow no change of team, stay in the team or
leave Epic.
4.About money: only base salary is good;
(1) little bonus;
(2) No RSU;
(3) Salary increase is small and it's not based on how much you work nor
performance (it seems to be on team and your base salary, just my guess)
(4) Poor 401K; have to work 5 years to get all your money back;
5. Minimum vacation, holiday and sick leave:
(1) Min vacation (10 days), holiday (6.5 days) and sick leave (6 days) in
large companies;
(2) No work from home, forget about it, even during blizzard;
(3) Tips: don't use sick leave since your manager will consider you going to
an onsite interview because...that's usually true;
6."Blame" culture, very political;
(1) For every bug you fix, you have to "point out" whose development cause
the bug (from technical perspective sometimes it's really ridiculous,lol);
you could ignore this, but they will keep in record;
(2) If you change some pieces of code, even has nothing to do with a future/
later bug, others will come to blame you for the future/later bug: "You are
the responsible person!". You even have to be responsible for the 10-year-
old and buggy code because your name is listed as the last edit;
(3) Many developers/managers are trying to "prove" the bugs should be fixed
by other developers/teams. It's annoying but easy to understand: if you do
the fix, the future trouble will come to you.
(4) When you make an error, say you fail to fix a bug or a small feature
fails, usually not your fault (system is too complex, the workflow is not
clear or the existing structure is poorly designed), you are the ONLY ONE
who should be responsible for that. There is a meeting specially for you,
talking about everything - that's OK, but others, QAs, your manager, and
other related guys are all free of duty! You (who put name on that
developing) are the only one to be blamed. Even a project fails, it is one
of the developers rather than the project leader, to be responsible for all
the failure and be kicked out of the company.
7. Very buggy system, and old code;
(1) Visual Basic should be responsible for large amount of bugs. Epic
amazingly builds and maintains its huge system using only VB, but you
developers have to pay for the miracle: more and more bugs are recorded
nowadays since the system is keeping on growing, while Epic is always
refusing to change the programming language (partially due to politics, and
also impossibility);
(2) Old codes: it's not uncommon to see codes in 90s; some codes are
rewritten but others are not; at early time, as a startup, Epic has poor
coding standard and regulation so the function name may even be A, B, C, D,
X or similar. It's a pain to see that kinds of code.
(3) Due to very high turn-over rate of developers, many codes, even less
than 3 years old, are impossible to find the writer or even someone who
could understand that.
8. Very high turnover rate;
(1) it's about 20% (my estimation and observation) of the whole company, all
the roles, seems to be not that high;
(2) Actually it's much higher than that for you new hires, because many
seniors won't leave (they also CAN not due to poor/limited technical skills);
(3) I don't know the turnover rate for all developers, but some teams has 30
%-55% turnover rate per year. That seems to be crazy, but it IS true: that's
the reason why developers in Epic are under pressure and very frustrated:
seeing most of your friends and co-workers leave, and have to take over the
work they've left as extra;
(4) High turnover rate leaves buggy code, poor and inconsistant design, and
unfinished projects, which cost more trouble for the developers who stay;
9. "Young developers are hard-work and cheap!"
(1) I'm really unhappy with the attitude Epic treats developers;
(2) They value little about your developing work. Even you are doing good,
they ask for more; when you can't achieve, you have to leave;
(3) There is no award for loyalty (a mug is not enough, right?): the longer
you stay here, they tend to replace you with young developers who has lower
salary, "Everybody can do this easy developing in VB!" said someone. Thus, I
saw many seniors that are worrying about losing their job.
(4) They hire few senior developers from other companies. In other words,
all seniors are Epic-oriented. This leads poor design and many management
problems.
10. Long working hours/poor work/life balance;
(1) Offer letter says 45-50 hours per week; (usually 40 in other companies)
(2) Some teams are even longer: 60-70 hours to survive;
(3) Some teams are not that high, about 40-45 hours;
11. Poor QAs;
(1) Epic QAs are new graduates, some of which even from top tier
universities, but majors in music, history or some other arts; they have
little idea about Software nor Engineering;
(2) However, they will produce (or have to produce) lots of tickets for you
developers to fix, and they usually require you to do much work to help them
- you have to do that, otherwise they have the right to give you trouble,
and you can't complain;
12. Soviet-style management culture;
(1) Unlike other IT companies, Epic has Soviet-style culture: if you
disagree with your manager, usually you have to leave; I saw a hard-working
8-year senior had to left in two weeks because he disagreed with his 3-year
manager in technical stuffs;
(2) If you are manager (they call "Team Lead"), you will be pretty happy,
though; even you make mistakes, you could blame your team members;
(3) How they select manager from new hire is unknown;
13. Growing worse for developers;
(1) At the beginning, Epic is not treating developers this bad;
(2) It seems from around 2007, Epic is becoming increasingly tough to
developers;
14. Madison, WI;
(1) Too cold in winter;
(2) Not many other IT companies; if you lose your job, it's hard to find the
next;
15. CEO bad-mouth competitors and brag;
(1) CEO said competitors' product just "can't use", and keep on saying that;
(2) CEO said Epic could be compared to Amazon, Google or Microsoft, but
actually Epic is like a big start-up, far away from those tops;
Suggestion to Management:
Treat developers better, at least not as slaves.
