Pros
- International Projects that can upgrade your resume - Salaries paid per schedule, taking into consideration financial situation in Greece - Opportunity to get familiarized with the "circuit" of engineering-procurement-construction- commissioning phases, and acquire an overall look of how a project is done - If you stay for a while (e.g. 2-3 years) you can find more easily job to worldwide equipment vendors (e.g. ALSTOM, ABB etc) in better countries than Greece. If you stay more.. "have a look at cons"
Cons
- Salaries defined from how you are LINKED to the management of the company regardless of years of experience OR performance evaluation OR the escalation of insurance fees (TSMEDE) which you pay on your own OR studies. - Huge "family tree" among the employees that work less than you but are awarded better than you - "Once in a construction site, always in a construction site!": There is no "rotation" of engineers for the site positions in the undeveloped countries and magement continues to send the same people again and again. Therefore, stuff quits because sees no development to their career besides being in the construction site. Obviously, "family tree" stays in the office. -The better you are LINKED to the management, the more possible to avoid construction site positions - Performance Evaluation procedure exists only to justify the HR existance. Scores, evaluation, etc DO NOT matter in the end so much. What matters more is how you are LINKED to company. - Technical "knowhow" is not kept from project to project because stuff leaves and every project is "start from scratch" - In contruction sites you work minimum 6 days for 12 hours. Usually you work 7 days. - No career develoment, no career plan. You just fill the positions needed. One year they appoint you site engineer, the second one a procurement engineer, the third one site engineer again... Therefore the acquired knowledge is "shallow" and not deep and your resume becomes blurred.