Ancestry reviews

3.5

52% would recommend to a friend

(785 total reviews)
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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
5.0
Feb 23, 2016

Can't think of a reason to unlike

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I actually had to think hard to come up with cons, so most are actually pros. To start with, the pay is on-par with, if not slightly more generous than, other Silicon Valley companies, considering its not the name everyone talks about when finding a job here. But when you take into consideration of the benefits its definitely above average. I am just going to list them here: Unlimited paid time off, free caltrain pass, parking sub, VTA, gym sub, phone, home internet, food, snack, drink, ski lift tickets, medical, dental...... This is one of the best list of benefits you could ever get not just in the bay area, but in the world. The most important factor is the work/life balance, even senior managements want you to have consideration for your family and look after yourself. read 5pm, sharp, off work. I forgot, you get to choose any computer, desk, monitor as you wish. Which may sound normal, but you'd be surprise to hear how many companies in silicon valley don't have this luxury. In terms of talents, at the very least, everyone is very committed to their roles since they are not being pressurized. The company can afford to be selective while attracting the right people. Its a tech/internet company, so all the cool tech are being used, e.g. spark, hadoop, kafka, machine learning..... I don't have the feeling of not wanting to go to work. And yes, you can work from home at least one day per week. Career progression is just like any work place, you have people holding the same position for years, while there are people moving up grades and grades within couple of years. It all depends on you. For sure, ancestry is a household name, but its not considered one of the top tech companies. However, in the industry that its in, it beats the next competitor by miles. There is no company having 1/10 as much content as ancestry, even the government needs to work with ancestry to get content. The DNA team is second to none, the scientists there are top top notch academics and all are committed to better the product/service. The health industry is ever increasing and ancestry is right at the forefront, i have very good outlook for the company.

Cons

May be no free lunch everyday.... but there is free lunch here and there most days during the week. Free snacks and drinks all the time. Plus this is one of the best neighborhood for trendy restaurants and good food, this is just another reason to social. I know, right, how absurd it is to say no free lunch is a con. How spoiled!

5.0
Feb 23, 2016

Software Engineer in Test

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good Culture. Family oriented. Great people. Great work environment.

Cons

No stock grant. Owned by a private equity firm.

1.0
Feb 20, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You get a free gym membership along with your contract. There are some free lunch sometimes... well you might enjoy it if you are lucky enough to be working day shift on that day and your lunch break is at a normal time (so quite unlikely).

Cons

As a Customer Solutions Associate - This place is a fake friendly workplace - Bad working times (late evenings and weekends unavoidable) and there's no rotation. They will tell you during the interviewing process that the working times are flexible and that you will be able to arrange them to your particular needs but this is not exactly true. The groups of new recruits are given different schedules to chose from when they start (recruits are left alone in a room to fight among eachothers for the schedule they want) and once the schedules are chosen you keep it for as long as you work with them. Everybody's schedule is different but everyone has to work at least one weekend day and some late evenings each week. - Bad atmosphere. They sell themselves as a very friendly company with a relaxed atmosphere, it could not be further away from the truth. I've worked in a few call centers, none of them was so demanding and unfriendly. You are so tightly monitored that not only your calls but also your screen is recorded. You cannot put your headset away for a minute to talk to a collegue because the phone does not ring out loud, it rings low in your headset. The targets are almost unacheivable for any normal person, they will fire you without hesitation even if you arrive on time, are never sick and work hard everyday just because your calls are 1 or 2 minutes longer than they should be... I spent 6 months in that company and it felt like the toughest and more depressing time of my life. I recommend everybody looking for a rewarding and human call center job to keep away from that place.

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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.