Pros
- Great colleagues who were (mostly) good at their job and understood there's more to life than the 9-to-5
- Great manager who supported my professional development opportunities where possible
- Lots of internal training opportunities available
Cons
eHealth NSW is a large government IT organisation responsible for the largest IT infrastructure in Australia (yes you read that right). For the early career IT professional this presents a few obstacles:
- Even though there are lots of internal training, there may be limited opportunities to apply those learnings
- R&D and similar opportunities for experimentation are rare
- Internal job listings for technical roles tend to be senior level, which makes sense considering the sheer complexity and size of just a subset of the NSW Health IT infrastructure
- Lots of rules and procedures to follow, especially when money is involved. These tend to change in response to leadership changes, which can stall plans to renew product licenses or convert contractors/temporary fulltime staff to permanent fulltime contracts
Since 2024 eHealth NSW is undergoing an organisation restructure that is still continuing as of July 2025. As part of this restructure the organisation is orienting itself to be a cloud-savvy yet thrifty entity, which is important for the SDPR (Single Digital Patient Record) it is planning to release by 2030. This has unfortunately resulted in people getting laid off irrespective of whether they are contractors, temporary fulltime or permanent staff. Hence, if you're applying to an eHealth NSW role, try to apply for a Fulltime - Permanent role, since those roles are less likely to be laid off.