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European Southern Observatory

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European Southern Observatory Reviews

3.8

72% would recommend to a friend

(19 total reviews)

74% positive business outlook

European Southern Observatory has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 19 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The European Southern Observatory employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Management and consulting industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

19 reviews
4.0
28 Apr 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent salary and benefits (not on par with some BigTech, but being tax-free is a saving grace). Good work-life balance and mostly stress-free environment. Good workplace conditions (your own office). Many people are actually interested in their work.

Cons

Zero growth opportunities or career development - organization can't grow (fixed headcount) and no-one ever leaves (no rotation), so whatever job you start with, that's it. Majority of people have been working there for 20-30 years, so you're always going to be considered a "junior". Technology is a russian roulette - you might work with something recent, or you'll be dabbling in necromancy. Most projects have a single point of failure, one "responsible" person who is the only one who knows anything. People are fractionally allocated to projects - 10% here, 15% there... This means either constant context switching, or you need to wait until the next year because they already "used up their allocated time". People on indefinite contracts are criminally overqualified. 20-30 years of experience, doing the work of a junior software developer. Most benefits are tied to your social status rather than your work (eg. having a spouse and children), so if you don't tick those boxes, your employment conditions will be significantly worse than someone else's doing the same job.

5.0
19 Apr 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Job security, marvelous offices, excellent HR team.

Cons

It feels like everything is slower than it should be.

1.0
4 Jan 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Excellent benefits and pay package for working abroad from europe in Chile, many benfits if you have children, education supports etc.

Cons

Extremely opaque decision making from management, projects cancelled with no warning, little consistency month to month in the direction projects should be going. Sever overallocation of work to few people. Organisation is highly resistant to change.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 19 Reviews

Glassdoor has 35 European Southern Observatory reviews submitted anonymously by European Southern Observatory employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if European Southern Observatory is right for you.