Depression central
Pros
It as a decent starting salary for entry level employees, but only when compared to other Lisbon based counterparts. Strangely enough, I was able to make a couple of really good friends there. Don't get me wrong: I know how extremely lucky I was. Unfortunately, for each one of these really great guys, I had to work with several "questionable" characters. Some of the worst engineers that I've work with, are still at Novabase. The majority of people there suffer for their 10+ daily hours and then go home and cry themselves to sleep. Somehow they think that a week on Algarve (or any other low cost destination) is worth the pain and suffering of having to deal with that environment for years on end.
Cons
Where to start? Basically, the harder you work, the harder your life is going to be. If you are a decent and hard working individual prepare yourself to be screwed over and over again. As soon as you prove that you can solve problems, you are going to be used to compensate for the legions of freeloaders and boot lickers over there. On the other hand, if you are used to go by life with the minimum effort possible, than this is your company. It is actually possible to get admitted into certain areas where you can spend days updating your Facebook profile without any prejudice whatsoever. Most managers don't like to be criticized by "underlings", just like your typical company from the 50's. Its kinda sad because at the same time, this company tries to output this "new age" outlook but fails miserably at it. Any decent engineer doesn't stay there for more than two years. If you do, either you have a really strong reason to be in Lisbon or you are too bad to go elsewhere. The evaluation scheme is a joke and creates more problems than it solves. It ends up creating a scheme that eventually frustrates the really good workers out of their contracts and allows a loop hole for the sleazy ones to be retained forever. The tendency towards infinity is bankruptcy by incompetence. The majority of people that left the company, did it out of frustration. There were ones that simply got better offers somewhere else, but the majority got fed up with the long hours, incompetent manager and general unhappiness.