consultant for EU Space Agencies: high salary, high instability
Pros
TELESPAZIO is a market leader in space downstream sector. If you work for TELESPAZIO's customers as a consultant for the customers, the advantage is that you are able to see how the customer works from the inside and you can put your hands on projects where the customer is the decision maker. For example, as a consultant, you can be assigned to support Agencies such as EUMETSAT, EUSPA, ESA, seeing the things from their point of view. This is interesting because it gives you the overview perspective that you would not have by working on internal projects or as part of the supply chain for the same institutional customers and agencies mentioned before. The salary is high with benefits such as meal vouchers, budget for private training courses or online available online on affiliated platforms, private health insurance, amount of days that can be taken for leave, and support (also by external partners) for clarification about payslips and tax declaration. If you decide to work as a freelancer, the salary could go really high, literally skyrocket to the point that you earn even more money than the EU staff personnel you are supporting. TELESPAZIO's organises great space events where the company figures, status, projects, and future challanges are presented.
Cons
As a TELESPAZIO's consultant assigned to work for institutional customers or EU Space Agencies, your position is highly unstable and subject to potential discontinuity due to external factors. Regardless of your good performance and positive feedback, your cooperation may end all of a sudden. This can happen because of a customer's reassessment of needs imposed by high EU bodies (e.g., the European Commission), or because at the end of the FrameWork contract the company doesn't win the bidding, or because in the new contract your position is moved to a differemt Lot where the company doesn't bid for or bids but doesn't win. Furthermore, as a consultant, you are just a consultant, hence your visibility of things is not as complete as the one of the staff you are supporting, and the staff remains the decision maker (i.e., your opinion is heard, but the staff may anyway decide differently, hence you may never be the decision maker). The current tendency to work in Deliverable Mode and more and more from remote, may negatively impact your learning curve, understanding of things, quality of the outputs provided, and potentially your competence in the subjects on the long run. Any activity for your personal growth that would require you to temporarily not work for the customer are rarely approved by the customer, especially if not esplicitly requested or suggested by the customer (e.g. you would like to attend a course plus exam to achieve a certification, you need to take holidays and pay it yourself). When your position is not confirmed, it may bebl hard for the company to immediately find another job for you that is in line with your profile and salary expectations, hence you are given the notice period and will be left unemployed right after; conditions and legal bindings depend on the Labour Code of the State in which your contract was issued. Due to this, your personal life goals and professional path might be undermined by discontinuity, unemployment, relocations, ending up left behind with respect to the competitive market demand.