Pros
- Interesting projects, many old technologies have to be replaced. I have the opportunity to get some experience with big data technologies (Hadoop - Hive and others) - Colleagues are often helpful, and almost always very friendly - The setting is beautiful, the offices are located in a Sophia-Antipolis, and you get to work in the middle of a small mediteranean forest - Almost never experienced any stress - Wages for junior positions are equal/ a little bit above parisian standards for cheaper rents and a very nice life quality.
Cons
- Internal politics are annoying and sometimes lead to weird technical decisions - Even though an engineering path exists, it seems to me that the only real alternative for an ambitious individual is to go into management. Someone interested in programming should probably switch jobs after a couple years - The management didn't care for code quality for many years, which leads to a high cyclomatic complexity for part of the code. This has changed but the code base is still there (and ugly). - As in every big corporation (there are 4000 people working in the Sophia-Antipolis center), some positions are more enjoyable than others. - Salary increase is quite slow, and getting higher in the management chain is difficult as there is little turnover