10 Lesser-Known Things ISRO Employees Shared About Their Work Culture

On 23rd August, 2023 at 6:04 p.m. IST, India made history by becoming the first nation to land on the South Pole of the Moon making every proud of this huge achievement. The relentless hard work put in over the years by the scientists and workers of the Indian Space Research Organisation has made this mission successful. Before this, ISRO successfully launched Chandrayaan-2 on 22nd July 2019, but it ended up being a partial failure due to Vikram’s software glitch.

ISRO ended up achieving its goal with a budget of Rs. 615 Crore for Chandrayaan-3 which is remarkable. With this project, it has got many people wondering about the work life of the scientists at ISRO. Who wouldn’t want to know about this promising and fascinating job and its work culture?

Here is what some of the scientists at ISRO have shared on Quora:

1. Salary and other benefits

“The starting basic salary is INR 56,100. Over this basic salary, there is Dearness allowance (which is 0% at the moment), which increases every 6 months or one year by 7%. In addition, you will be given appropriate house rent allowance (HRA) and travel allowance (TA), which varies from city to city depending on which class of city you work in. HRA can be 10–20% of your basic salary depending on the city. Same goes for TA.”

– Yash Guha, 2020

2. Promotion life at ISRO

“We have a system called DPC (Departmental Promotion Committee) for promotions which is an independent panel to assess your work. Ideally your promotion is not dependent on how many higher posts are available. But, switching to a job outside ISRO may not be that easy like in private sector.”

– Arun Krishnakumar, 2016

3. About scientist/engineer post in ISRO and their life

“Well, I am working as a Research Intern at the Remote Sensing Center, ISRO, Jodhpur since 2 months. To be honest, it is one of the most prestigious job to work. Being a scientist/engineer, you are not only working for yourself and your family, you are serving your country from your research work. Unlike other IT engineers, you will be working in various research projects, attending governmental meetings, working with other scientists, and even implementing your cool ideas with college undergrads. And of course, salary is quite descent as well. And you only work for 8 hours and 5 days a week.”

– Parampreet Singh, 2016

4. Work life balance at ISRO

“You would be spending 9–10 hours in office and another one hour for travelling. Within 9 hours of office you get two tea breaks and one lunch break. You shall make many new friends from your own batch and also all seniors treat you as friend as well. Weekly two holidays are guaranteed most of the time, except when your project is about to launch and work is at peak. Leaves are mostly granted if planned well in advance.”

– Avinash Hinduja, 2019

5. Promotions at ISRO

“You won’t be shuttled all over India like other central govt. departments. Time bound reviews of your performance will be done, and if you are found good, you will be promoted, but mostly you will continue in the same department unless you are promoted to top management.”

– Jayakumar Chandrasekharan, 2020

6. Holidays and leaves

“Apart from government holidays (usually 15-17 an year) you get 10 casual leaves and 30 earned leaves. There are separate medical leaves. Female employees get six months of maternity leave and an additional two years of fully paid child care leave. But if you think we work in the same ‘sarkari‘ relaxed way, we don’t work like that. People come to office on time, most people put extended hours of working. During certain testings and launches we work round the clock.”

– Sabari Sreekumar, 2016

7. Boss plays a major role in promotions

“Your career depends a lot on your boss. You must and must hope for a good boss. The term goodness is person specific and will vary person to person depending upon their expectations from work. Your boss plays a major role in your promotions as well.”

– Aishwary Mishra, 2020

8. Involvement of bureaucracy at ISRO

“I worked at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre for a little over 4 years and at the ISRO Satellite Centre for 4 years, 6 months. In both these places, there was no bureaucracy to any significant extent.”

– Srinatha Hebbale Ramaiah, 2019

9. Life at ISRO for freshly graduate engineers when they join

“As a new joinee you will start with a 3 months induction program. This would be a batch of 200 new joinees. During this program you will be given a comprehensive training on the whole of ISRO, space science, launching technology, its missions, various space missions, various centers and their roles, basics of satellite launching, launch vehicle, propulsion, control, aerodynamics, orbits, structures, review mechanism etc.”

– Rajesh Gullum, 2018

10. ISRO cares for it’s employees

“The pay is good. And they provide living quarters and transport facility. And yes, a lunch costs only five rupees in the canteen. Breakfast costs lesser than that. Evening snacks and dinner are free. They pay for your children’s studies. Health coverage is better than other government departments. Recently I had an accident after which I was admitted in a super specialty hospital who served me a bill in six digits. I only had to pay in three digits from my pocket, my department took care of the rest.”

– Sabari Sreekumar, 2020

Also read: ISRO Scientists Conducted A Reddit AMA & Their Answers Are Going Viral