Qualtrics, a Provo, Utah, survey software firm, will be hiring 250 people after landing a $70 million infusion from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. The company, co-founded in 2002 by Scott Smith, a statistics professor; his son Ryan; and Ryan’s Brigham Young University classmate Stuart Orgill, has been profitable from the beginning, they say. The family-run firm turned down seven other offers, but son Ryan Smith finally persuaded his dad to accept the investment because it came with the expertise he was seeking to expand overseas. Simply put, the company sells tools to create surveys, then display and analyze the results in myriad ways. In addition to university clients, Qualtrics also claims accounts with Barnes & Noble, CVS/Caremark, Microsoft,  Southwest Airlines and Toyota. Of the 250 expected hires, company spokeswoman Liz Tanner said, "a significant portion" will be engineers. She wasn't able to pin down a more specific number. "But all our client service people are technical, too -- they have to be." She added, "Being a SaaS-based company, we can innovate quickly, pushing out new releases about every six weeks with 80 percent of the changes based on customer feedback." With the new hires, the company will grow from 200 employees to 450. It's not specifying the languages or platform experience it's looking for, though it is does require "computer scientists, not programmers or web developers or script kiddies." It will also consider graduate or undergraduate students looking for part-time positions. Utah had the second highest job growth in the U.S. last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Forbes recently ranked Salt Lake City No. 4 on its list of the best cities for tech jobs. Related Links: