Pros
Great colleagues and very friendly atmosphere (matters more than people think since you spend most of your life at work) Managers are not superior in attitude, they are always friendly and approachable Great private health insurance (births, great dental coverage, very good blood and vitamin bloodwork included, hospital stays etc.) Free breakfast and free drinks (water, tea, 20 kinds of fizzy drinks), fruit available all the time Clean, spacious and modern office Separate meeting/conferece rooms that can easily be booked by anyone Plenty events throughout the year (board games, Christmas party, cultural events, children's day for the kids of employees, etc.) Very good career culture - if you want to move in a different direction in your career, while it won't be an instant change, you can easily reach people to mentor you and people are extremely friendly People are often encouraged to take parts in various internal and external events
Cons
While the job was 9-18:00, you would rarely see people leave on the clock because work is neverending Difficult work-life balance for the average individual, the environment forces anyone who wants stability to be upfront and have boundaries because there is always someone needing help, always a manager wanting more questions, always a customer wanting more. While to anyone reading it might seem logical to have boundaries and know when to stop and go home, once you are in this environment and everyone around you acts the same, there is a sense of feeling bad to say no, to put yourself first more often, to clock out on time. It is quite difficult in some teams because there is no proper technical documentation and every engineer has their own "wiki". That makes it difficult to find information that you need about how a service or a specific task works. Also, I found it challenging to work with my Romanian colleagues from TM and Bucharest because I would sense often annoyance coming out in a raised tone. I do understand that people are often overwhelmed with their own work and don't have enough time to deal with other issues, but the same issues are also in other teams across EMEA, but friendlier colleagues. I personally interacted much better with the Portuguese and French team.