Great Place - Senior Software Engineer Health Catalyst Employee Review

5.0
Nov 1, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Imagine a Software Engineer. We all recognize that Engineers do not need to physically be in a building next to their manager. There is no chain and there is no whip cracking in the back. The organization is built in such a way that they hire "Professionals" and not the ones that "EVERYONE" says they hire. This means that people have REAL accountability and that they are given REAL responsibilities. This means that can have flexible schedules, they can work in other time zones and most importantly nobody needs to watch over others. This means productivity can be concentrated to productivity. The company provides benefits that are unique, like home office. Paying for Internet and cellular devices. Pay for remote collaboration tools. This isnt limited to just work things, but also give employees money to enjoy in company wide activities like movie nights and carnivals. The company days off are as much as a government department and there is unlimited PTO. In other words you have no problems getting time you need to step away. Another benefit is that the management is very open and transparent. They give you options, the give you the direct information about the company. Basically they tell you what they know and what they are facing, good and bad. Not something that people see often in other places.

Cons

The biggest problem I have seen have been the health care plans. There is a 20% co pay that I have not ever had to pay. Maybe this is part of health care plans in the past few years. To give you an idea, my kid was born in 2016 with a different provider and it "cost" the hospital 18K. It cost us 1800 altogether with my previous job. With the new health insurance here, its going to cost 3600, so almost double. Ultimately if you are facing medical bills like babies, make sure you can cover it. I feel like it offsets, but its still something that is different that I did not anticipate fully. The ONLY other thing I can complain about is the career path. The path you can go is management and thats it. Sure you can stay as a developer but nice you reach the top developer after 5 years, there is nothing left for you but management. Maybe a look at breath in a particular job might be good. Considering the company is still a smaller software company this is a common problem and is interesting to see how it will be solved.

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Health Catalyst Response
7y
I really appreciate your feedback, and am happy to hear of the positives your are experiencing as a senior software engineer. Your role is so critical to the company's future success, so it is heartening to hear your experience has been positive. Thanks for the feedback on the healthcare plan. I'm hoping that I can share some good news in that regard, which is related to the company's contributions to your HSA. The company contributes $1,000 into your HSA plan at the beginning of each year (for team member + family member plans), without you needing to match, and then will match your contributions per pay period up to a company contribution total of $3,400 per year to your HSA. And that HSA money is yours to utilize for co-pays and other healthcare-related expenses. So if you were to have taken advantage of the company matches, you would have contributed $2,400, and the company contributed $3,400 for a total of $5,800 in your HSA. You could use that $5,800 to cover the co-pay of $3,600 in the scenario you highlighted, when your baby arrived, and you'd still have $2,200 in your HSA account, which rolls over and stays with you permanently. So in a sense, you would have expended $200 of the $2,400 you contributed to your HSA, and the company's contributions would have covered the rest of the co-pay. I hope this is the case, and that is certainly our intent in providing that combined health insurance + HSA contribution benefit. I would encourage you to check in with Linda Llewelyn, our Chief People Officer, to confirm you're receiving all the positives of our health plan benefits package. And, if I'm missing something, I'd like to better understand it, and wonder if you might feel comfortable setting up some time 1:1 with me to help me better understand. We absolutely want our benefits to be a positive differentiator for our team members, so if we've missed something and need to improve, we'll take action. Finally, regarding the limited career path outside of management, this is an area of focus for us, and I believe we will be making progress in this regard, to stretch the positive career path for individual contributors to longer than a five year time horizon -- perhaps more like a 10-year horizon. I would also invite you to think about management as a potential career option -- management has its downsides, and isn't for everyone, but it does afford the opportunity to leverage your skills to the benefit of a larger team, which can mean there is greater impact and contribution, through the effectiveness of the team. Thank you for choosing to join us, and for contributing to our success as a company. I'm grateful for your contributions to our mission. Best, Dan

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Cons

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Great Talent & Culture: The people here are highly capable, collaborative, and committed to helping each other succeed. The partnership between onshore and offshore teams works well and is a real strength. There’s a culture of grit and stability that has helped the company navigate multiple major transitions over the years. Mission-Critical Engineering: The work involves complex data infrastructure that requires deep technical expertise. It can be demanding, but seeing these systems run successfully and support real-world operations is consistently rewarding.

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Wage Compression and Retention Risk: Compensation for tenured and high-performing staff has not kept pace with the market for specialized data engineering and support leadership. In practice, tenure can feel undervalued or even penalized. This creates risk around losing institutional knowledge and operational continuity. Stagnant Career Progression: Contrary to stated expectations, strong performance ratings do not consistently translate into meaningful, market-aligned compensation growth. The process of how compensation is benchmarked lacks clarity in practice, obscuring how compensation decisions are made and what is required to advance.

5
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