Pros
The travel industry is extremely inspiring and full of interesting problems to solve There are tremendous opportunities to create value for the company by relying on its main assets: its network of customers and the quantity of its data The company is very strong financially because of its business model Lots of smart people work in the company and you can build a strong network of colleagues with which to collaborate If you work well (and sell yourself well) you will be fueled by a never-ending list of interesting projects and collaborators In general the people are trusted (sometimes a bit too much) and depending on the position, you can have a lot of freedom The setting of the site in Sophia Antipolis (Nice area in France) is stunning: close to the mountains and the sea, you feel you are on vacation every week end Like other big French companies, benefits are good (7 weeks vacation in total) The company is undergoing a transformation program that is more preventive than corrective and some changes are slowly starting to happen
Cons
The company is very strong financially so management incentive to improve, take risks, and adapt is lower: even without doing much the company can thrive for another couple years. Some senior management can get a bit too comfortable The company is not data-driven and empowerment is limited (many things are set by top management), which means it is difficult to have a measurable individual or team impact. We say we work in agile but we don't (yet) There is a culture of consensus which has the advantage of increasing buy in but the disadvantage of making every decision so much longer Top management attitude towards compensation in France is rather stingy given the company's financial health: the strategy is to pay you at market when you are hired out of school, and then lock you because you have settled in the South of France (and then the salary becomes sub-par compared to salaries in Paris and pretty much in any similar company for a similar role) Top performers are differentiated from average performers because they often get the most interesting projects, but the salary difference is marginal, unless you manage to become a director (which is rare and feasible today only if you become a people manager) You can feel depressed if you are not in a sales or executive role and try to estimate the contribution you had to the bottom-line of the company