Ancestry Employee Reviews about "work life balance"

Pros

-Some of the nicest folks I have ever worked with -Great work/life balance

Cons

Leadership does not care about its employees and use the fear of layoffs to keep employees working hard. Diversity and inclusion is also a huge issue. Morale is low after so many layoffs (even when the company is doing well).

Pros

- Great work/life balance, unlimited time-off and wfh policies. - Very good benefits, salary ok. - Open communication and transparency.

Cons

- Culture was destroyed in the last few years. - Infrastructure had changed so many times, disrupts focus on quality products and innovation, and is cumbersome. - Productivity tools replaced for no real reason, and sadly for bad and impractical ones. - Add poor management and you have a combo and poor performance and productivity.

Pros

Work life balance is really good if you have a family. If you play the politics game right, expect to move up the ladder very fast even if your skill is Junior level at best.

Cons

A lot of backstabbing going on in the engineering department. Some take credit for work they’ve never done and get promoted. A lot of incompetent engineering managers who are blind and political

Pros

Ancestry has always been notable in that it tends to retain fantastic people at a much higher rate than other companies often do. Historically this has lead to a unique and high EQ culture where people genuinely care about the product and customers. The work-life balance has been great - every company should emulate Ancestry's approach to this. The benefits are mostly decent (better comparatively for those in Lehi than they are in SF) and in most areas managers are very invested in their employees. I have a lot of good things to say about the CEO and CFO who genuinely seem to care and there are many fantastic leaders throughout the organization. This is the type of organization where it's almost inevitable you'll make friends for life. There is a lot of reason to be optimistic about Ancestry right now compared to the previous three years. If you're looking for an opportunity to really grow yourself among excellent people, this is actually a great time to be at Ancestry.

Cons

Coinciding with the deal which took Ancestry private in 2016, private equity firms have wreaked havoc with the company. Re-org after re-org have swept the company. Leaders who had 10x'd the revenue of the company were forced out and replaced by leaders from Silicon Valley who had degrees from the right universities and had worked at the right companies, but no meaningful track record of innovation or growth. Most, but not all, of the new leaders from silicon valley have been disastrous. Not only did they fail to bring any sort of innovation or growth, they chased out many of those who could resulting in a brain and passion drain from the company from 2016-2019. The fumbling from execs at the command of their private equity masters would have been humorous if it wasn't so tragic. Recent layoffs in response to an industry-wide market reset on DNA have excised much of the remaining cancer introduced by the private equity firms, although many good and valuable people got cut out too. It seems like the parts of senior leadership which are not terrible have learned from some very painful lessons and are finally positioning the company to realize it's massive potential. While there are still some private equity puppets in senior management, there has been a dramatic concentration towards excellent leaders and as you move down the ladder, the share of high quality people increases rapidly.

Pros

The company has good work life balance .

Cons

Pay is 40% to 50 % below market rate in San Francisco. No career advancement. Not interested in diversity or inclusion. Below average benefits for the area.

Pros

Good work life balance Great benifits

Cons

Poor senior management who have no sense of direction Recently laid off ~100 employees that includes some of the very recent hires.

Pros

The work-life balance is great. The genealogy product is a great product and is immensely powerful. Above average pay for Utah. Some good perks and benefits, including unlimited PTO, flexible work schedule, a 24-hour fitness center, discounted lunch, free drinks and snacks, etc. The bonus structure is decent. Office space was exceptional. Some of the people below Director-level are absolutely humble and amazing people, in spite of the Mormon culture here in Utah. Opportunities to grow horizontally, meaning there is opportunities and freedom to explore new technologies.

Cons

For those reading, please take into consideration other negative views very seriously. This is one of many reviews which also highlights terrible senior leadership with no sense of innovation, product roadmap and accountability. This was not always the case. Once upon a time, this company used to care about its products, customers, and employees. This changed with the current cancer in senior leadership who are in place today. All Senior executive leadership is based out of San Francisco, many of whom are woefully disconnected to their respective teams and the product. They had no clear direction and no winning strategy. They were unable to even utilize the potential of some of the teams. They are responsible for the recent failures of this company, and fail to hold themselves accountable. This includes the declining revenue, professional atmosphere, and ultimately, downsizing its workforce. Lack of diversity. This manifested itself very badly in a racially-insensitive commercial which was aired on April 2019, which resulted in a huge backlash. The people who approved of this commercial are apparently still working for this organization. This speaks volumes regarding senior leadership. Below average pay for San Francisco. Advancement from within this company is a pipe dream. Most of the top talent who actually built this company have already left the company. Some were forced out, while others left on their own free will. Roughly 100 employees were recently laid off, some of whom were hired only a few short weeks earlier. Made no sense. Anticipate another wave of exodus of the remaining top talent away from this organization, which has been a direct result of poor senior leadership.

Pros

- Decent benefits - Excellent Work/life balance - Friendly people - Good mission (no pun intended, since 70% of employees are mormons :D)

Cons

- Lack of winning strategy - Average leadership (especially at executive level) - All top leaders are in SF, half of which don't relate to the product much - Sub-par compensation especially for SF Bay area standards (and no hope of going public)