Meditech Development Programmer reviews

-starting Salary. easily 15k-20k below average. - technology and software development practices. Terrible. They use proprietary programming languages developed inhouse. Very procedural like. Not object oriented. The text editor is garbage(although they did recently start deploying Eclipse IDE in conjunction with a few of their newer languages which was a plus). It's display is very similar to command prompt. like a flashback to the 80s. They also develop other inhouse software like email(retired), scheduling, word processing. Mostly because they are cheap and also want to be in control when a bug ever arises, which it does without fail. The company uses a waterfall method of software development. Not dynamic at all and many issues arise because the software is developed this way. -old phones from the 80s. -I was expected to work beyond an 8 hour day to get my tasks for the week done. (9-11 hour days and work through lunch) Two issues with this: 1. They don't pay overtime so the low starting salary becomes lower (per hour at least) 2. One of the reasons I took the job was because I heard no one is expected to work over their 8 hour shift. -I was judged by the quantity that I got done rather than the quality. The bug backlog is so high in the first place because of their waterfall method. I was rarely working on projects and felt micromanaged on the bug fixes. They pretty much forced me to quit. I was barely meeting the minimum required each week(3 bugs) and they suggested asking for more help, which I had been doing(along with staying an extra hour or two a day). But they also said that my questions concerned them about my technical aptitude. This is ridiculous because their programming language has more than a few unfavorable quirks, so questions are likely to arise. I was stuck between pushing out crap fixes to meet my quota or risk asking questions that made me look like an idiot. They also said my goal would be bumped up from 3/week to 4/week for bug fixes. If I did not improve within 10 weeks, They were considering termination. Set up for failure right there. I'm sure the entire company is not like this, and I would give MT a 3 star rating, but this left a bitter taste in my mouth and it is because they only promote from within that they get crap management. -also, when I put in my two weeks notice, I was asked to leave the same day. I heard rumors about this but it turns out its true. To avoid this, they say to be honest at the get go when you initially feel unhappy or get the idea of leaving MT. But I couldn't take that risk. -Low cubicle walls were more of a con than a pro for me. It was nice to be able to talk to my neighbor but at the same time I had 2 other people next to me and they could see and hear our conversations.gets noisy too sometimes. -Once a month pay...at the end of the month. The most I was ever used to was a bi-weekly pay rate. This takes time to get used to but at least all the bills get paid the day after you are paid. Other than that, you feel broke for the rest of the month. -They also sell you the "no layoffs in over 40 years" but in reality, they force people to quit all the time or set you up for failure then fire you for low productivity. -No 401k retirement fund. -High turnover rate. the CEO said he didn't think the turnover rate was that high, and that it was an average turnover percentage comparable to other companies. (this doesn't seem right unless the turnover rate does not calculate anyone working for less than two years.) He also said he doesn't worry about the "less than 2 year" employee turnover. he worries more if a bunch of 5 year or 10 year employee turnover. This make sense, however, the fact that people are hired and immediately turned off within two years or less should be a bit concerning. Plus, the 5-10 year veterans wouldn't have any transferable skills(which is probably another reason turnover is higher in the 2yr or less employees, b/c they want to get out before they get stuck) to even consider leaving. they are pretty much stuck there because they won't be hired anywhere else except for MEDITECH consulting positions. I even had a hard time getting another SW engineering role because I had no experience in Agile SW development or any recent universal programming language skills . There might be a few more cons that I left out but I can't think of any right now. This company isn't the worst job out there but there are definitely more cons for me. I believe if I were in another group this would have gotten a neutral 3 star review. However I did plan on leaving MT within a year or two anyway, so the 'non transferable skills' con would have justified the 2 star review.