Pros
If you are lucky enough to be placed on a good team, you may work will pleasant people. Ancestry Corporation provides good benefits and working options.
Cons
Unfortunately, there are many. Important note: Ancestry ProGenealogists (ProGen) is a subsidiary of Ancestry Corp. (TGN Services, LLC) and is not run the same. ProGen is managed by its owners at the time pf purchase and functions almost as a completely separate unit.
Although the job is touted as a research position, if you spend 20% of your time researching, you are lucky. A large portion of the client billed time is spent on miscellaneous, repetitive, and clerical type activities. This includes writing and re-writing the same information multiple times in a variety of formats to align with the current whim of the leadership/reviewer. Items include citations, findings, and the status of the research completed (often in attempts to make it appear that more has been accomplished then there was).
ProGen bills clients for blocks of time and all of that time is billed at the same rate. With the high number of hours actually spent on administrative tasks, this leaves a small proportion of the time left for research.
The expectation for most genealogists is that approximately 6 hours of an 8 hour working day are spent on client billable time. This leaves 2 hours a day to attend meetings, research a new tool/access method/the ever changing guidelines, take your breaks, address emails and messages, organize, prep and wrap up your work sessions, etc. The end result is that employees regularly work above and beyond (most without any additional compensation) 8 hour days/40 hour workweeks to meet their billable targets or they bill clients for minor tasks that do not contribute substantially to the research. (I had not encountered anyone who did not work above their regular hours to meet their billable goals, most were uncompensated.) Meeting billable targets is addressed at every ProGen meeting with the repercussions of not attaining the goals (layoffs) openly discussed or alluded to as well.
Overall, the culture of ProGen in unhealthy and unprofessional.
Questions about unfair work expectations, work processes, and management are quickly shut with no true consideration given to modifying anything for the betterment of the employee, client, or ultimately the business.
It is apparent that leadership are not provided any type of training. Assigning tasks, providing feedback, knowing what is and what is not appropriate to say to a co-worker experiences run from poor to downright litigation worthy.
I could go on, but for those who are considering a position with ProGen I HIGHLY suggest reaching out to former employees (especially those with advanced degrees or other work experience, you can find some on LinkedIn) for more information before moving forward.