Benefits at a glance

As University of Washington employees, we receive generous benefits to help you live your best life while furthering one of the world’s greatest missions. Brief information is provided below. To discover more detail, please visit https://hr.uw.edu/benefits/.

  • Healthcare

From various health plans, identify the option that best suits you and your family. Avail yourself of life insurance, long-term disability, and long-term disability insurance. You can even carry your health insurance into your retirement years. Some plans allow a FSA in order to pay tax-free for out-of-pocket medical costs. Similarly, a DCAP allows you to pay tax-free for preschool, day care, nanny fees, or to care for a person who is disabled.

  • Vacation and sick leave

Salaried staff earn vacation time and sick time. You will accrue vacation hours once a month on the last day of the month. You can use these days on the first of the following month. Your vacation accrual rate is based on your employment program or collective bargaining agreement, years of service, FTE status, and prior Washington state service (if any).

You may donate vacation time off hours to another employee in need of leave for medical or military reasons. The University pays out unused vacation time only when you separate from University employment or move within the University to a position that does not accrue time off. 

There is a lot more to say about vacation accrual rates, but we’ll leave that to talk about on your first day!

  • Retirement

The university has several plans to choose from, one that matches dollar for dollar up to a certain percentage and vests immediately!

  • Transportation/Commute support

If you have lived in Seattle for even a day, you know that traffic is a beast. The University offers a few ways to help you cope. Firstly, it has a transportation services office that can help you plan your commute options. Secondly, you can avail yourself of the U-Pass – a university ID linked to the public transportation system so you can better access regional buses, commuter trains, light rail, and water taxis, as well as discounts on vanpools, carpools, and other special offers. For more information, please visit https://transportation.uw.edu/.

  • Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program

Through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, you may qualify for forgiveness of the remaining balances due on your William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program loans.

  • Something extra

As an employee, you can also receive discounts on auto, home, and renters’ insurance. And, through our employee assistance program, UW CareLink (https://thewholeu.uw.edu/), you may be connected to experts to help you or your family members navigate life’s challenges. You are eligible to receive free, confidential access to guidance consultants who provide counseling, legal advice, financial guidance, elder care assistance, work-life solutions, and consultation for managers.

You may waive a pretax deduction from your paycheck, and also take advantage of our housing and home loan programs. UW makes it easy to be a working adult!

Your colleagues

One of our favorite things to do at IHME is to recognize brilliance among us. Each year we are encouraged to nominate our coworkers for their chance to be named Innovator of the Year or Rising Star/Rookie of the Year. We also give out the Outstanding Growth Award and the Community Builder Award.

Our 2018 Community Builder was described as a servant leader who builds bridges across teams, helping them understand one another so they can work together more efficiently. Our Outstanding Growth Award went to a colleague who has been at IHME for more than six years and advanced through three jobs, doing everything from data visualization tool project management to leading a team of editors and graphic designers. Where she is now is very different from where she started – intellectually, professionally, and interpersonally.

The Rising Star award is given to one person each year who has started their employment at IHME in the past year and has continually broadened and deepened their expertise in order to enhance the IHME mission. They have sought out learning opportunities and translated that new learning into productive action. The Innovator of the Year Award goes to a person or team that created a unique product, result, or service that addresses new approaches for completing work more effectively or efficiently and that increases our quality of work.

Living in Seattle

Seattle prides itself on its access to water and mountains, on recycling like experts (do not be surprised if someone plucks your trash from the garbage receptacle and places it in the compost receptacle), on refusing to use umbrellas (that’s what hoods are for!), and on having numerous James Beard Foundation award-winning restaurants and chefs.

We take our coffee seriously. Yes, it rains here, but our summers make up for it. In July, August, and September you’ll find us on a stand-up paddle board or sailing, grilling in the back yard, or camping and hiking the hundreds of trails just outside the city. Winters are for the ski bums in all of us. Then there are the Seahawks, the Mariners baseball, the Sounders soccer, and the history-making Seattle Reign women’s soccer team. Our independent museums and movie and theatrical stages keep us laughing and crying and gasping, and we cannot resist an Art Walk. And, there are too many volunteer opportunities to count in the Emerald City.

Perhaps the best thing of all – you can bring your dog on the bus!

IHME’s training program

Whether you bring experience or are enjoying your first full-time job, our onboarding and training team is here to set you up for success. We presently offer about 150 classes on everything from how to use our computational infrastructure (which we use to generate 30 terabytes of data in less than a day!), to how to conduct a systematic literature review, to how to develop a survey for primary data collection. All employees attend classes on IHME’s role in population health and our major products. You’ll learn about things called Cooper, and Buster, and Jobmon!

In addition to formal classroom trainings, we routinely offer drop-in gatherings for those who need help with their code or are willing to share their latest tip and trick with other coders. We support a continuous culture of learning by issuing an all-call for use of professional development funds every quarter. Staff are able to apply to attend a special class, conference, or hackathon, for example.

Regardless of your position, you can always learn more simply by availing yourself of the latest lecture. Our faculty and team leads regularly present on their research methodologies and findings, as do visiting scholars.

One of the greater benefits about being an IHME employee is the Washington State Employee Tuition Exemption Program. For eligible staff and faculty, this state program pays for about six credits per term for classes taken at the UW or other participating state, community, and technical colleges. Naturally this has to meet with your career path and work life responsibilities, but it is a benefit few other organizations can offer.

Lastly, peer-to-peer learning is a real construct here through our affinity groups and our newly minted mentorship project.