Some layoffs make headlines for a day before going unnoticed. They are not like Sitecore. They come in waves, year after year, loud enough for anyone who has worked in the enterprise software industry to be able to recite the pattern from memory, but quiet enough that most people outside the industry never notice.
For the better part of ten years, the Copenhagen-based digital experience company has been periodically reducing its workforce. Between 100 and 150 people, mostly in Europe, were impacted by the cuts in 2015. Then came 2019, when about 70 workers, or 5% of the world’s workforce, were fired following a dismal fourth quarter in which expenses were said to have exceeded revenue. It was referred to by the company as a realignment of resources. Speaking anonymously at the time, workers described it as more akin to a missed goal and a rush to make amends.
The financial aspect of Sitecore’s story is what makes it worthwhile to watch. After purchasing the company for $1.14 billion in 2016, the Swedish private equity firm EQT continued to invest in the company as it pursued an ambitious shift away from its on-premise origins and toward cloud software and composable architecture. Sitecore raised $1.2 billion and went on an acquisition binge under former CEO Steve Tzikakis, quickly acquiring Boxever, Four51, Moosend, and Reflektion. It was a daring idea.
Additionally, the company later acknowledged that it moved more quickly than many customers wanted to. “We disrupted ourselves,” Dave O’Flanagan, who became CEO in 2024, told an Australian trade publication that year. The intended meaning of the line was candor, and that’s how it ended up. However, there was an awkward sequence going on behind it: EQT had attempted to sell the company but was unable to find a buyer at the desired price. The chairman and Tzikakis left. Earlier that year, as the company’s debt became more burdensome due to rising interest rates, about 5% of its employees had already been let go.
The cuts didn’t stop there. In early 2026, a former employee wrote on Glassdoor about months of weekly all-hands calls where the message was straightforward: the company was growing at 5% and needed to be at 15%. They claimed that mass layoffs were the solution. They claimed that from March to July, employees were under stress and struggling to make ends meet, and it was unclear which departments were safe. Colleagues who survived one round of layoffs were let go in the next, according to a different reviewer. There was a growing perception that the company was operating in what one called private equity exit mode, and several observed offices closing soon after leadership had promised stability.
Naturally, the sample of Glassdoor reviews is skewed. Some former salespeople describe Sitecore as a better employer than most, where people “boomerang” back after leaving. However, the most irate voices are usually the loudest, and the company still has supporters. Both can be true simultaneously. Anxious businesses can also be good ones.
This is also part of a larger narrative. Much of corporate America has been affected by the 2026 layoff wave, with companies citing offshoring, restructuring, and artificial intelligence in roughly equal measure. Sitecore, a debt-ridden software company owned by PE that is under pressure to expand more quickly than the market permits and whose owner has already made one attempt to leave, fits the situation almost too perfectly. As early as 2019, analysts stated that businesses frequently reduce their operations before a sale. It’s difficult to avoid viewing the current cuts through that same prism.
It’s really unclear what will happen next. The product has a robust developer community and devoted users. However, when the layoff cycle becomes a company’s defining rhythm, the question shifts from whether the strategy is sound to whether anyone will be left to carry it out.
