Qualtrics Cuts 117 Seattle Jobs as $6.75B Healthcare Merger Reshuffles Staff

Qualtrics is laying off 117 employees in Seattle, the latest software maker to trim its workforce as the city's tech sector grinds through another rough stretch. The experience-management company filed a state layoff notice disclosing the cuts, which the company has tied to its recent acquisition of a healthcare data firm. Affected employees have a separation date of October 18, 2026.

Qualtrics said the layoffs resulted from its acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta, a healthcare-focused feedback and analytics company based in South Bend, Indiana, according to The Seattle Times. Qualtrics closed its $6.75 billion purchase of Press Ganey Forsta in May 2026, a deal aimed at combining patient-feedback data with the company's core AI-driven software platform, per PR Newswire. Qualtrics employees were first notified of the Seattle cuts through a state regulatory filing two weeks ago, and the company said the reductions will not result in relocated positions.

The company said in its filing that bringing the two organizations together required decisions about operating as a single, uniform team, and it is reducing headcount based on duplicate roles created by the merger. Qualtrics companywide layoffs were first reported in August, and the cuts were not confined to Washington state — employees were also laid off in Provo, Utah, where Qualtrics maintains a dual headquarters, as well as in the company's international offices.

A New CEO Moves Fast on Restructuring

The staff reductions follow a leadership shake-up at the top of the company. Jason Maynard was appointed Qualtrics' chief executive officer in February 2026, filling the permanent role after former CEO Zig Serafin departed in October 2025, according to PR Newswire. Maynard joined Qualtrics from Oracle, where he had served as Executive Vice President of Revenue Operations.

Before the broader staff cuts, Maynard eliminated five senior executive roles in April 2026 spanning product engineering, corporate development, strategy, marketing and IT, according to GeekWire. In an internal memo, Maynard said the executive cuts were meant to simplify management structure and accelerate decision-making and product execution. The moves came as the company operates under private equity ownership, having gone private in 2023 in a $12.5 billion deal led by Silver Lake alongside the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board — an acquisition that followed SAP's $8 billion purchase of Qualtrics in 2019 and its subsequent spinoff through a 2021 IPO.

Heavy Debt Load Looms Over the Merger

The Press Ganey Forsta acquisition was financed in part through $5.3 billion in debt underwritten by a JPMorgan-led banking syndicate, which faced estimated paper losses exceeding $500 million in early 2026 amid tight credit market conditions, per the same account. That financial pressure has kept cost discipline in focus at Qualtrics under Silver Lake's ownership, though it is not the reason the company itself has publicly cited for the job cuts.

This is not the first time Qualtrics has trimmed its workforce since going private. The company went through two rounds of layoffs in 2023 that cut more than 1,000 jobs, according to the Seattle Times. Qualtrics remains the anchor namesake tenant of the 38-story 2+U tower at 1201 Second Ave in downtown Seattle, a footprint that dates to the company's 2019 expansion from Pioneer Square, though it has previously put roughly 100,000 square feet of that space up for sublease as hybrid work reduced office utilization.

Seattle's Tech Sector Keeps Shrinking

The Qualtrics cuts land amid a much larger wave of layoffs sweeping the Puget Sound region. Amazon and Microsoft have together been responsible for more than 8,900 Seattle-based layoffs since 2025, and tech employers across the region have laid off more than 10,000 Seattle-based employees in that span, per the Seattle Times. Meta and Amazon have both gone through sweeping layoffs since May 2025, while TikTok and Snap have collectively cut hundreds of Seattle-area roles.

The pattern has continued into this fall. Amazon submitted a Washington state regulatory notice on August 31 announcing 121 permanent layoffs across Puget Sound facilities, including 35 corporate roles in Seattle, according to GeekWire. Meta filed a state WARN notice in March eliminating 331 Washington jobs, including 40 in downtown Seattle, concentrated in its Reality Labs hardware and metaverse group, as Hoodline previously reported. Google also filed a Washington WARN notification in early August covering 52 job cuts across seven office locations in Seattle, Kirkland and Redmond, with separation dates scheduled between September and October.

Washington's Mini-WARN Act, which took effect in July 2025, requires employers with 50 or more state workers to give 60 days' advance written notice before a mass layoff of 50 or more people, expanding worker protections beyond federal standards by removing single-site percentage requirements, according to Nelson Mullins. That law is the statutory backbone behind Qualtrics' 117-employee filing and its two-month notification window ahead of the October separation date. Whether Qualtrics will announce further post-merger cuts at its Provo headquarters or across its international offices remains an open question.