Every day, I look forward to coming to work. Any given day, there is a variety of interesting work to pick up or
get involved in, and a fare amount of autonomy to make it happen. There are good, driven people working
here, and people that really care about what they do and what they do for members and customers. I am
lucky to work across many departments, from research, to sales and marketing, to biz dev, to product and
innovation, to ops support, and most people are a pleasure to work with and very responsive. There is a
range of jobs here, too, from actual doctors and nurses, to research marketers, to data analysts, to editors,
to software developers and traditional ops/marketing jobs. I have seen (and perhaps dare I say, made)
ideas happen here and get rapport, though I've also seen lab projects start and die. I actually feel like I can
manage my "inbox" well here because we sit so closely with our teams, and everyone is a holler or an IM
away for the most part; this isn't a case of a calendar overwhelmed with useless meetings as you are
largely in charge of managing what you choose to partake in and where you feel needed. And maybe it's
because of our proximity to tech, or because of some of our biggest customers being in tech, but Premera is
actually quite a bit more web and mobile ready compared to many companies in its industry. I feel proud to
work for Premera, and it's always met with respect when I mention it to my many counterparts in high tech. If
you live and work in the Seattle area, you know Premera!
It's also a job where you get to eat your own dogfood -- and it's helped me understand my own healthcare
and benefit plans. I actually find myself able to better inform others about how it works and how to make
better decisions about benefit coverage and healthcare, though there is still so much to learn and find out.
And I do feel that it's had a positive impact on my wellness (minus the driving and being strapped in a car on
an endless commute).
Unique to eCommerce, we have changed our culture here a lot over the last couple years in trying to bring
agile to development (moderately successfully) and to our roadmap planning. The greatest hurdles to
overcome there have been working with 3rd parties that aren't on that type of cycle as well as internal project
management / dependencies across departments. It's not unique to Premera and is largely a function of
size, legacy, priorities, and the fact that this isn't really a tech company, and its projects are largely non-tech,
so you're always competing for resources and attention. We've done a fair job with defining goals and
targets, and we've been getting better at using metrics to drive decisions, but prioritization remains the
greatest challenge, and hence generally large features take a while to roll out and frequently get cut out of
scope to switch to more urgent maintenance asks or parallel competing priority. There just never seems to
be enough developers to all the PMs and projects, and the UX budget is tiny, though it still always seems
like Premera is hiring. There is some turnover we've seen over the past year from many team shifts and just
the function of many contract workers. One great experiment I've seen go really well is bi-weekly demos we
have started to showcase our work, and it's kept us accountable, diligent, as well as provided great visibility
to internal stakeholders -- and it started out as a simple idea. So it's definitely possible to bring some
positive change here.
Broadly speaking, here are some other reasons to consider working here:
-Stable industry & company -- goes without saying
-Flexible hours for the most part though this is department specific. There is a normal expectation that you
are here during core business hours and that you take responsibility for managing a balance between your
work and personal needs.
-Laptop and work phones for certain departments (probably based on job)
-Great time off benefits
-Modern layout, open concept space in eCommerce and plentiful whiteboarding space for creative people
and analysts alike
-Perks: club memberships, 10% off at the car dealerships down the street, discounts on cell phone plans,
hotels that are in the Blues locations, zoo tickets
-Attractive merit bonus opportunities
-Generous pay is possible here although growth within a track may be limited
-Love for Alaska and Northwest in general
-Very nice walking trails on campus
-Legal benefit gives you 25% off legal fees for (limited) network providers
-Free EAP for life crisis or daily guidance -- think finances, taxes. They'll find you childcare and petcare
options -- all for free. Like a personal concierge.
-Great cafe with many choices including at least 1 vegetarian entree option, and a Starbucks right onsite and outdoor seating in the summer
-Quarterly all-hands and department celebrations and one annual all-campus celebration
-Frequent onsite screenings and mobile clinics
-Nice size campus (4 main buildings) and close to a number of health facilities including Swedish campus
down the street
-Healthy perks and rewards for healthy lifestyle (not smoking, etc.), free bike rentals
-Free medical insurance (no premium) if it's only you and you're healthy, reasonable dental, $400 towards
glasses!
-Very secure campus with 24 hour security, campus phones, badge in and out access, and you can ask for
a lift around campus from security. Security and front desk folks are the nicest guys, and they know you by
name. They also give you loaner badges and don't make a big deal out of it -- it's an easy process. And they
reissue badges for free if you lose yours -- easy deactivation and reactivation process, right onsite and takes
minutes.
-Leadership training is available, and sometimes the entire department gets nice professional training right
onsite that would cost $1000s to do individually. There are also online courses one can take as part of
personal development
-Paycheck, time off, performance management is all online and self-service -- no forms and no HR people
to contact
-Agile environment in certain departments, definitely see increasing innovation with introduction of more
research departments
-Responsive customer support, HR and benefit teams, and they actually take your feedback to improve their
training content
