Starbucks to cut 61 tech jobs in Seattle as turnaround efforts continue

Starbucks is trimming 61 technology jobs at its Seattle headquarters even as it spends $100 million to expand support operations in Nashville, a move that shows how Brian Niccol’s turnaround is being shaped as much by cost discipline as by store-level recovery. The layoffs are set to begin in June and were disclosed in a Washington state WARN filing dated May 7.

The cuts land in a division that underpins Starbucks’ digital business, including ordering systems, mobile apps, loyalty programs and logistics. That makes the decision telling. Starbucks is not abandoning technology, but it is signaling that back-end roles can be pared back while the company focuses on faster service, cleaner operations and stronger profitability in the stores that customers see.

Starbucks said the Seattle layoffs were not triggered by relocation, even though some technology work has already been slated to move to Nashville. In April, the company said its Southeast corporate office in Nashville would complement its Seattle headquarters and eventually house 2,000 support jobs over the next five years. Those roles will include net new positions, work brought in from contractors and professional service providers, and some teams transferred from Seattle.

The move fits into a broader restructuring that has been unfolding for months. On June 4, 2025, Niccol said Starbucks was reviewing the role, structure and size of its support organization and warned that job eliminations and smaller teams would follow. On Sept. 25, 2025, he said the company would shift Seattle and Toronto support centers to a four-day in-office schedule and require support-center people leaders to be based in Seattle or Toronto within 12 months.

Starbucks has also been trying to prove that the operational reset is working. Its fiscal second-quarter results on April 28 showed global comparable store sales up 6.2 percent, U.S. comparable store sales up 7.1 percent and net revenues of $9.5 billion. The company raised its fiscal 2026 guidance after the report, even as labor investments tied to the Back to Starbucks effort continued to weigh on margins.

The latest cuts follow a long round of pruning. Starbucks said fiscal 2025 ended with 40,990 stores after 107 net closures in the fourth quarter, including 627 stores closed under the Sept. 25 restructuring plan. The company had already said its company-operated North America store count would fall by about 1 percent in fiscal 2025. With Anand Varadarajan now leading technology after joining from Amazon in December, Starbucks is reshaping both its leadership bench and its cost base as it pushes the turnaround deeper into 2026.