Next year, I'll be joining a few other Ephs at
Epic, an awesome company located in Madison, WI. I'll admit that when I initially applied, I thought of Epic as a long-shot - I didn't know if the position I was applying for was a good fit, and Wisconsin didn't even border any states I had visited. After this, though, came a whole series of interesting and fascinating screening methods, all of which I'm afraid I'm already too loyal to reveal. :P
What I will say, though, is that the screening process was smart enough for Epic to figure out that
I had applied for the wrong job. And so, when I received an offer to fly out to Wisconsin, it was for a
different gig - one that was much more exciting, and much better fitting my interests and aptitudes. But still - Wisconsin? My skepticism changed with two events.
First, my friend A, another Project Manager to-be, sold me on the company. That's a nice story by itself (I'll be going there with at least two other '11 Ephs, not to mention other Williams grads already employed), but consider the time: 2 am. And the place: a rugby pitch.
You see, A and myself were both volunteering for a 24-hour Rugby match for charity, happening between 8 am Saturday the 23rd of April and 8 am on Sunday the 24th, which also happened to be Easter. And so, after my midnight Easter vigil, I came down to the field. Drei asked about my employment situation, and I told him I was flying to this "Epic" company in Madison, not remembering that Andrei was from Madison, or that he would be working at Epic.
And so, standing by the pitch, as the players took a sanctioned break, I was sold on the company I hadn't visited yet. Flying there confirmed everything that Andrei had told me: Epic is an open company: the middle picture on the left shows the giant assembly hall where they hold a monthly all-company meeting where honesty and transparency are the name of the game. Their cafeteria uses a ton of natural light, and their corridors was wonderfully designed, as is their landscaping. The campus is gorgeous, no one has a cubicle, and in the winter, you can take underground tunnels between all of the buildings.
Most importantly, though, are Epic core values. I can't find them online anywhere, but here's a teaser: Epic has a
treehouse, recycles 65% of construction waste (and there is always construction thanks to the explosive growth), has a working farm with cows, uses a geothermal system to heat/cool the buildings, offers
many neat benefits, and most importantly, holds confidentiality sacrosanct, even as the company allowed me, a recruit, to wonder around the various buildings to see for myself that the entire place was as neat as the smidgen I had seen on my tour.
What will I be doing? Essentially, I'll be making Epic's software work, which is precisely in line with what I hope to do with the rest of my life - to enable better processes to serve more people at lower cost. Epic is a fantastic place to start that journey, and I'm looking forwards to my time there.
