Pros
- They're open to all majors. I was a linguistics major. The manager who interviewed me had been a geography major. One of the best programmers in my group was a Philosophy major. If you're a college student looking for a first job in technology, whatever your major may be is fine with Meditech where other companies might not give you a thought. - For programmer positions the interview includes a test that teaches you some of the language but largely looks at your logic/analytical skills. Personally I think that's really the best method. - Like everyone else says, they have good benefits. 90%of health/dental paid. For an entire family plan with spouse + children I was paying about $250/mo. Sweet deal. - They take really good care of their grounds/buildings. I think it's vastly underappreciated. It's nice to take a stroll and enjoy walkways around Lowderbrook. Have lunch in the beautiful atrium in Canton. In the winter, walkways and parking lots kept impeccably well plowed/shoveled/sanded. If there were any problems with my cube/area, put in a ticket and quickly taken care of. The operations staff are phenomenal. - The annual bonus gets quite nice after a few years. It's a percentage of past 5 years pay so it keeps getting better each year. - The company picnic is awesome. Only thing I really miss. It's mostly done by volunteers. I would highly recommend you volunteer. It's a lot of fun for the kids and you get free Meditech swag in thanks. :) - As others have said, generally good work/life balance. They tend to be very family friendly in general. - For Other Mommies: Really nice mothers rooms. door lock, very nice cushy chair, lots of magazines, has its own mini fridge for milk so you're not stuck putting milk in the communal kitchen fridge.
Cons
- Like everyone else has said, salary way below industry and it never catches up. Raises are in $1200 increments determined at annual review. So after your review you might get a raise of $0/$1200/$2400/$3600 or rarely $4800. I honestly think MT expects everyone to buy stock. The long-termers who were doing well that I talked to, that's how they did it. It often outpaced their salary. Or they hit cap on the profit sharing plan. - The annual bonus does not make up for the low salary. Some people try to claim that. Leaving Meditech got me an immediate 33% raise even when I included the bonus into my MT pay. - Raises should be better tied to performance. Most people expect their raise to be based on their performance and group budget/company success. That's it. At Meditech the other salaries in your group are also taken into account. This was more of a problem for the long-termers like 10+ years when the rest of the group was newer. They said it didn't matter how hard they worked or well they did, they'd still get a $0 or at most $1200 because they already outpaced the group. There's a surefire way to kill senior employee motivation. - Getting a promotion doesn't necessarily get you a raise either. It merely raises your theoretical pay cap (they don't have hard caps last I checked). It can be raised but doesn't have to be. So oftentimes being promoted means taking on more responsibility now but not seeing any benefit until your next review comes around. - On that note, advancement potential for those of a technical mind but not interested in management is limited. You've got Programmer > Senior Programmer > Computer Scientist. That's it. Computer Scientist appointments are few and kind of a big deal so you see quite a few folk languishing at Senior Programmer. If management is your kind of thing, there's more options available to you. But for geeks who want to grow in skill rather than clout it's very narrow. - Because the company only hires entry level and promotes from within, leadership promotion seems more like Survivor or attrition warfare than who would make a good supervisor or manager. In areas of high turnover, the one who lasts the longest is usually the one tapped. Highly motivated people who want to be managers/leaders usually leave before they get to that point. - Pay/promotion aside, let's talk about other motivating factors. Appreciation/praise? Largely depends on your supervisor. Sometimes customers will appreciate what you do but not often. Freedom/Autonomy? Again, largely depends on your supervisor. Mine was fantastic but some micromanage hard. Learning opportunities/skill growth? The main reason why the reviews here recommend this only as a starter job. You will learn a great deal in your first years here but after a certain point it will stop. That's the point I would recommend trying to transfer to learn new/different skills. In the same position, once you've learned what you need to do the job proficiently there's almost no encouragement to go beyond. - As implied by the last point, your supervisor can make your Meditech experience awesome or awful. Given the tenure/outlast modality, I unfortunately saw a lot of the latter. This was a killer for group morale, hampered or outright discouraged employees' development, would cause more turnover and oftentimes it was difficult to transfer out from under such supervisors. Which brings me to my last point... - They must be in a state of denial over their internal mobility if they think it's great. Their transfer policies are already longer than my huge entry here but there's no oversight of those policies either. I've seen what look like vengeful sups block transfers of those under them. Those people wound up leaving. None of my cases were that bad but it did take me 2 years to get my first transfer. Trying for a 2nd transfer 7 years in, it was assigned almost a year out (well past a policy that says should be in 90 days) which is when I finally threw in the towel.