Excellent company with strong technology and services, with a culture that's probably a great fit for 80% of us - Anonymous employee Health Catalyst Employee Review

4.0
20 Nov 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Mission oriented company with the goal of improving the entire healthcare ecosystem, with a strong foundation in enabling healthcare providers to manage and leverage their data to treat patients and run their hospitals better, but also starting to take a more holistic view to the complex machine that is healthcare. Work here and you'll never question whether you're doing something with your life that has meaning. Regardless of whether you're writing code, servicing a customer directly, managing calendars, or anything in between, everyone is treated as a valuable member of the team who plays a crucial role in making things tick, and has an ownership stake that's intended to represent this - a bit more on this in the cons though. Goals are aligned well with the mission, and are company-centric rather than at the individual level. This has led to a culture in which team members, when possible, do their best to support you regardless of whether the ask will directly impact/make them look good. Leadership does a really fantastic job of separating personal priorities and beliefs from the way the company is run. Of course general ethics are applied here, but business decisions are made based on business mission rather than any personal, political, or religious beliefs. Almost everything Health Catalyst does is data informed. This is how we think healthcare should be practiced, and we live these principles to drive decisions across even our internal company operations, with methods such as surveys and monitoring to track, visualize, analyze, and decide on the best path forward. Really great data, analytics, and application platform. It's a thrill as it feels like almost every month you learn about some new capability or use case that the company has some sort of solution for that we can take advantage of for new challenges. And we're constantly innovating.

Cons

The highly remote friendly environment, though some still express concerns that we aren't remote friendly enough, has sometimes led to the feelings of a "ghost town" in the office. Future state here in this respect is TBD given various planning that's in the works, and there's variation from team to team, but it's something to be aware of and to ask about in your interviews if in person interaction is your thing. The company has adopted a merit structure that in my opinion is a bit socialist - fairly strong annual merit increases across the board as long as you do your job, but for those who need to stretch significantly and perform above the standard requirement, there's little to no recognition of this from a base pay perspective. Can't comment on stocks here as this is TBD at the moment, but generally it seems as though the company is looking for a formula that can be applied across the board when it comes to compensation.

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Health Catalyst Response
6y
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful review. I really appreciate it and I'm glad you chose to join Health Catalyst this last year. I'm also encouraged to hear of the positive experiences you've had thus far with the connection to the mission, the goal to be data-informed in all we do, and the innovations occurring in technology and services. I feel the same encouragement and optimism for the future based on these positives. I also find both of your cons and your advice to be insightful and relevant for us to discuss. First, as it relates to the "ghost town" feel of our SLC office given that we've striven to be very remote-friendly, I agree with the assessment that perhaps the pendulum has swung a little too far away from enabling a sense of community in the offices we maintain. And I acknowledge that for most team members, this opportunity to feel connected through face to face interactions is a meaningful component of their experience at Health Catalyst. One proposal that's on our list of 2020 adds, across our offices, would be company-sponsored (but still reasonably-priced) meals once a week, at the office, to encourage team members to gather together and connect, face to face, on a relatively regular basis. We do this for ATM meetings every two weeks, and it seems to encourage team members to gather and connect at the office. I hope we can add this as a benefit in 2020. Second, as it relates to our merit structure, I largely agree with your assessment that we've built a structure primarily focused on the 80-90% of team members, each year, who are solid, strong performers, with secondary considerations of how to deal with exceptional situations, on both ends of the spectrum of performance. As an example, we target the 75th percentile for compensation for team members across all positions, levels and functions, and we have one companywide bonus plan where we all participate similarly in the company's overall success. This is based on a strategic assessment that most of what we do to accomplish our mission is complex and requires many individuals from several functional areas to work together effectively to achieve success. Team-based and more "flat" compensation encourages this team-oriented perspective and collaborative approach. We are also hoping that the sense that the overall generosity of the compensation structure, combined with the connection to a mission that is deeply meaningful, will be sufficiently appealing, even for team members with exceptionally high performance, to decide to stay at Health Catalyst. But there may be some situations where a team member may prefer a more individual-based compensation model, and may be in a position in certain circumstances, to maximize individual compensation elsewhere. We do have some secondary elements to reward and recognize exceptional performance, and I would encourage you to give Health Catalyst some more time before you come to a definitive conclusion about how you feel about compensation for exceptional performers. One example is our promotion process -- we have an infrastructure in place that enables both the 80-90% of team members to realize promotions on a fairly predictable and positive cadence (on average every 3-4 years), but also enables exceptional performance to accelerate that process. And we proactively, as a leadership team, prompt every people manager to go through a meaningful review of every team member on their team every six months, to consider who is ready for promotions. Likewise, in the annual equity grant process, we provide an equity grant for every team member in good standing (excluding the ~5% of situations where a team member is working through a performance issue with their manager) with equity grant ranges associated with job levels on a consistent basis. But we also ask managers to identify exceptional situations where team members have performed significantly above expectations, recognizing this may only be applicable ~10% of the time, but we do account for this in the annual equity grant process. These equity grants will, hopefully be communicated to all team members by the first or second week in January. I sincerely hope that these elements will prove compelling and result in most team members who value the team-oriented culture focused on a mission that is worthy and motivating, to choose to stay at Health Catalyst, including those with exceptional performance and contributions. But I also acknowledge there may be some team members who would prefer the incremental compensation possible in other more individual-based compensation structures. We are willing to make this strategic tradeoff, believing strongly that we gain much more than we lose by adopting the strategy we have adopted. Thank you again for your insightful review and comments, and for choosing to join Health Catalyst! Best, Dan

Explore other reviews about Health Catalyst

5.0
23 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Supportive team environment with opportunities to work cross-functionally on meaningful healthcare initiatives. Strong focus on client impact, collaboration, and continuous learning.

Cons

Processes and roles can feel ambiguous at times, requiring employees to be comfortable navigating change and figuring things out as they go.

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Health Catalyst Response
3mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. I appreciate the thoughtful recognition of our collaborative culture and the meaningful work the team does together. How we work together matters just as much as what we do. Our operating principles and cultural attributes remain foundational. To address your concerns about processes and roles, as the organization evolves, we’re prioritizing clarity in these areas to better support teams. There’s real momentum building right now, and the work ahead is meaningful. I’m grateful for you and the role you play here, and I’m excited about what we’re building together.
3.0
5 May 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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