Great place to work, heavy workload - Software Engineer Health Catalyst Employee Review

4.0
Nov 4, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Health Catalyst has always been great about sharing information to their team members. There are often meetings where upper management passes the information on to team members. These meetings have been getting better and management is aware of peoples time and will stick to the times they set for these meetings. Health Catalyst has always tried to treat their team members well. This has not changed. The benefits remain to be very good, despite that the company has been growing a lot recently. One benefit that helps in your career is the education benefit. This has allowed me to gain new skills or to deepen skills that I already have. It has also allowed me to progress in my career and continue to move forward

Cons

It seems that there is a wider disconnect between middle (outside my team)/upper management and team members or teams. There is more work to be done in shorter amounts of time, with the push coming from middle management. I know that as a company we will have to deliver more but at what cost? The work/life balance levels have been dropping and with that happiness levels. This disconnect has also started happening between teams. It feels like there is more of a self promotion feel and only doing what will benefit your team. Working across teams and getting things from others teams is also becoming very hard. Unless it serves the team you are asking, it seems to be harder to get items done. Small thing - the technologies used across teams is the wild west. For example, teams can use a number of communication tools from Teams to WebEx and Slack. Having cross team meetings can sometimes mean installing a new communication tool just to attend the meeting. It would be nice for a little guidance from management on what tools we should standardize on.

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Health Catalyst Response
6y
Thank you for this thoughtful review, and thank you for contributing to our company's success for many years! I am glad to hear that the all team member meetings have been helpful -- and we'll try to keep improving in terms of starting and ending on time! I'm also glad to hear that the benefits are positive, including the education benefit. Each year we'll work to continuously improve in this regard. I also appreciate you flagging the challenges you're facing in terms of the workload you're expected to shoulder. This balance between personal sustainability for team members, from a work/life balance perspective, and financial sustainability for the company, is delicate and difficult to achieve, and must be constantly monitored, with the need for frequent adjustments. We will discuss and reinforce this concept in tomorrow's all-team-member meeting, and will follow this up with emphasis to the extended leadership team in our next weekly meeting. As I have shared in our most recent all-team-member meeting, we as a leadership team would view a reasonable expectation for most roles at Health Catalyst to be fulfilled within a 40-50 hour work week, while also enabling team members to take each of our company holidays as well as a reasonable amount of vacation time off (a total of around 7 weeks between company holidays and vacation days, on average, per year). This should be true across functional organizations -- technology, professional services, sales & marketing, R&D, and general & administrative positions. For those with management responsibilities, and for more senior leaders, there will likely be some additional hours required to fulfill those added responsibilities. If a team member is consistently finding that, beyond exceptional situations, they are needing to work significantly more hours per week than this, then they should flag this to their manager and/or to HR, and we can work together to address the causes of this situation. Causes may include that we are under-resourced, or that we've set the wrong timing expectation, or that there is more training needed to enable effectiveness, or that this is not the right job fit. Whatever the cause, we can work our way through it in order to improve. We also recognize that certain team members may choose to work more than 40-50 hours per week, of their own volition, perhaps to enable them to take more time off per year while still meeting their job expectations, or perhaps because they want to qualify for promotion more quickly than would normally be the case. This is certainly a choice that any team member can make, but it should not be a requirement. I also agree that we need to become more standardized in our use of technology, and less like the wild west. This will be an area of focus as part of 2020 planning. I also really like your suggestion for all managers to hold small group discussions, and perhaps we can encourage managers to do this proactively, reinforcing that we at Health Catalyst would be happy to reimburse the expenses associated with these small group lunches. I still hold lots of lunches with team members -- typically 1-2 per week, as part of my overall goal to hold 200 skip-level 1:1s each year -- and I continue to find these 1:1 discussions incredibly helpful. My 1:1s sometimes include a meal, other times are just a discussion, but regardless, they are an incredibly useful way to hear direct feedback from teammates about what's going well and what can be improved! Thank you again for your review and for your service these past 5+ years. I really appreciate your commitment to our company! Best, Dan

Explore other reviews about Health Catalyst

5.0
Nov 11, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Good work-life balance - Motivates to grow

Cons

- Benefits are slimming down

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Health Catalyst Response
3mo
Thank you for taking the time to share this feedback. We’re happy to hear you’re experiencing a healthy work-life balance. We hear your concern about benefits. These are critical areas, and we continue to review our compensation and benefits strategies to ensure competitiveness. We are committed to being data-informed in these decisions, and your input helps us do so. Thank you for your continued commitment during this transformational time.
3.0
May 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

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.

Cons

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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