Ancestry reviews

3.5

52% would recommend to a friend

(785 total reviews)
avatar

Howard Hochhauser

80% approve of CEO

54% positive business outlook

Ancestry has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 785 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Ancestry employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

785 reviews
1.0
Mar 18, 2018

I can no longer recognize the company I work for

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Decent benefits - Good product

Cons

At the moment, the company has no direction. When the new leadership came on, things went downhill. The culture changed from the family like to very corporate. They speak of innovation but Ancestry has been very stale. Nothing new or exciting to offer to our customers. That's fine but it forces a lot of good engineers to leave. Ancestry also had this weird layoff (about 40 engineers and directors were let go). The choices were very arbitrary (they had to find that 5% to lay off) and some very good people were forced out. Engineering leadership is lacking. They repeat the same old meaningless slogans that nobody buys. In fact, everything that is wrong with Ancestry right now, is due to the new leadership's failures. The leadership does not understand the core values of this company and the customers it serves. If they move most of Ancestry to San Francisco, the company will lose whatever is left of its soul and it will not be successful.

2.0
Mar 16, 2018

Opportunity lost

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice office space Onsite Gym with personal trainers Good benefits Exciting DNA product, which is helping grow the family history side of the business Lots of great software engineers

Cons

Turnover of executive leadership has been a rough transition. I think the drive to have a good IPO outweighed employee retention. Layoffs during our best year yet. No real innovation. DNA is a great product, but overshadowed by other companies who are pushing faster. Culture has changed drastically in the last year. There are lots of disenchanted employees.

Viewing 544 - 546 of 785 Reviews

Glassdoor has 909 Ancestry reviews submitted anonymously by Ancestry employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Ancestry is right for you.