“We need to get smaller, to get better, to get bigger,” Healy said. “It’s one of those days that I don’t think any executive team likes. Anybody that’s built something never likes to have to tear any part of it back down.”

The energy-management company announced on Friday that it will immediately trim its global staff by about 15 percent. That translates to more than 200 jobs from a 1,400-person workforce. Chief executive Tim Healy said most of the people affected work at EnerNOC’s headquarters, on the South Boston Waterfront, where the company has employed about 600 people.

After emerging as one of Boston’s biggest clean-energy players, EnerNOC is now embarking on the largest round of job cuts in the company’s 15-year history.


The cuts are primarily aimed at adjusting EnerNOC’s energy software business. EnerNOC has been trying to grow that business quickly, in part through a number of acquisitions, to allow the company to be less reliant on its core business of “demand response,” a system that rewards clients for reducing electricity consumption during times of peak demand.

The cuts will affect software programmers, developers, project managers, and marketers, along with administrative support jobs.

Healy said his team is trying to focus the company’s software business on more profitable sectors, those that are generally more well equipped to use its energy management software, such as manufacturing and commercial real estate. He said he expects EnerNOC will not renew the contracts for a number of less profitable software clients as they come up for renewal over the next year.

Healy said these cuts represent the largest round of layoffs since he helped launch the company in 2001.

“We’re still committed to [the software] business, but what we need to do is reduce our cost structure significantly in light of where the market is today,” Healy said. “We’ve overbuilt a little bit. We need to recognize that fact.”


Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.