Congratulations on 15 Years at TCS!
In the fast paced world of software development, it is rare for staff to stay with the same company for 5 years, let alone 15. TCS Healthcare bucks that trend as a tight-knit technology company that can boast an average tenure of 8 years across almost 35 employees.
In fact, two TCS staff members are celebrating 15 years of work with TCS Healthcare: Matt Fahner, VP of Engineering, and Marina Page, Technical Application Specialist. I took an opportunity ask both of them about their experiences working with this population health software company and for their insights on what makes TCS a great place to work.
I started by asking them both how they feel about working at TCS and what makes it so special. Matt replied, “TCS has such a great team of people to work with, all of whom have great skill sets. We all work so well with each other, as well as with our customers. It is really nice to work with such a talented and experienced group of people.” Marina agreed with those points, but emphasized that, “I really feel like TCS is my second family.”
Fifteen years may be a long time, but they both agreed that this time has “absolutely gone by quickly!” Marina recalled trying to find the small office building in Auburn 15 years ago with no GPS and getting a bit lost and flustered, but when she walked in the door, she immediately felt welcomed and comfortable with the staff. Matt added that “between raising his family with two children and building new products and features, the time has really flown by for me!”
Both agreed that working with many of the same folks for several years gives them the advantage of really knowing co-workers’ personalities, as well as their technical skills, which all blend together to constantly improve our software solutions.
TCS is a small technology company, where the voice and importance of each employee is amplified. When asked about this, Marina responded with, “the size of TCS and the flexibility that it gives us is definitely one of the advantages of working here. My experience at other larger companies is that they lean toward a more bureaucratic structure, which makes it harder to accomplish your assignments. TCS can turn around product solutions much faster. I also like the fact that TCS uses a Team approach, which includes Developers, Clinical Specialists, Project Managers, and Support staff when building our solutions, which ensures the best decisions and outcomes for our customers.”
Marina went on to describe how “ACUITY Advanced Care was the first project I worked on, and I immediately fell in love with it! Seriously! I still love it! Back then I was in Software QA and it was fun to explore our product inside and out because it has so much flexibility and different ways to accomplish a business goal. Also, built into ACUITY Advanced Care are some features which use some basic programming, which I was able to use within parts of my test cases, which I love to do! By experimenting with this feature, I was able to help to improve our product as it was being developed.”
Marina started at TCS in the Quality Assurance (QA) department 15 years ago, and now works as a Technical Specialist developing both standardized reports for our software and custom reports for our customers. She mentioned that one of the aspects she really loves at TCS is “the opportunity to learn new skills, like when developing new reports using JReport software. I have a great deal of experience and knowledge with Crystal Reports, and exposure to Tableau dashboards. TCS continues to move forward incorporating the newest and most secure data handling solutions, which is really exciting to me!”
Matt started at TCS as our System Administrator, managing the computing and server infrastructure that is used by all TCS employees. Matt said, “Now I am responsible for all of Product Development, QA, Infrastructure, and Client Success. I currently manage 23 staff members, plus consultants!”
A lot of things can change within 15 years, to which Matt replied, “Well, everything has changed! From physical servers to virtual servers, to the Cloud infrastructure; it changes the way we develop, test, deploy, and interact with software. The regulations have gotten tighter with HIPAA, HITRUST certifications, and required data encryption. Nowadays, we consume data differently in a variety of locations, on a variety of devices. Bottom line–our customers want reliable business applications that enable them to perform their business anywhere, at any time.”
To sum up her experiences, Marina reiterated that, “As I mentioned before, I feel like TCS is my second family. The atmosphere, the energy of my co-workers, the friendliness, the location in Auburn, the nice office building, the flexibility of my work schedule—all of these combined makes for a wonderful work experience for me!”
Matt echoed similar feelings by saying, “It’s been enjoyable to work over the last 15 years with all of the talented individuals at TCS to build and support our client base. It really is the people who make the job the most rewarding. There is a really strong core set of co-workers here and we have all grown together through the years as a strong team. That’s what makes us work so well together and what it’s all about.” Matt concluded his experiences by saying, “We, as a team, take pride in ensuring that every single customer is happy and that our products are performing as expected.”
On behalf of TCS, we thank both of these individuals for their 15 years of service and it sounds like we are all looking forward to many more years to come.