SUSE to cut one in ten employees because of... AI

'Modern tooling is already changing our daily workflows' says CEO at open source biz

One in ten employees at SUSE are facing the chop due to "automation and AI," according to a memo dispatched by management at the privately owned open source software biz. 

In an email to the 1,900 strong workforce on Monday - seen by The Register - CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, the former Red Hat exec who joined SUSE in March 2023, confirmed the "difficult news."

"We are announcing a reduction of SUSE’s global workforce of approximately 10 percent," he said. "These decisions are painful for our people, our culture, and our open source community, but they are necessary for us to adapt and build a sustainable, resilient SUSE for the long term."

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Van Leeuwen says the business, bought by Swedish private equity provider EQT, decided to cut jobs after scrutinizing its "future strategy, required capabilities, and team structures." The rest of the organization will get a look at the fiscal year 2027 strategy on November 16.

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He said in the message to staff:

"What is clear is that automation and AI are fundamentally shifting how software companies operate. AI capabilities are advancing exponentially, forcing us to radically reimagine our work. We have seen this trend already both inside our sector and in the wider economy. This means that the organizational design and cost base that SUSE is built on today will not carry us forward successfully.

"We are adapting. Across SUSE, modern tooling is already changing our daily workflows, enabling teams to move faster with less operational overhead and flatter reporting lines. The requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished. Other roles will evolve over the next few years. This means we are accelerating investments in high priority areas, and deprioritizing others. These are hard, painful decisions to make, but necessary for our future." 

As The Reg reported in 2025, SUSE doubled down on AI.

The specific roles at risk of redundancy were not outlined but SUSE claims it has considered where the people in those positions are "able to evolve, what they can stop doing, what they need to do more of - and decisions have been made on that basis." 

Staff caught up in the redundancies will be informed by November 4, employee representatives nominated the following day, and one to one meetings will begin at the start of next week. 

Van Leeuwen says in the internal memo that the job cuts are a "reflection of shifting organizational needs, not your talent or commitment. You have tackled hard infrastructure and open source challenges that power critical enterprise systems around the world.

"Any organization will be fortunate to have your expertise."

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Back in September, we reported that the company was asking old hands if they would take "voluntary separation." It seems not enough people chose to walk through the door, so instead, they're getting thrown through it instead. SUSE "geckos" in the Czech Republic may be glad they joined a trade union.

Back in 2018, EQT bought SUSE from Microfocus for $2.5 billion. EQT floated SUSE on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2021 with slightly disappointing results. A couple of years later, new CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen took over, and later in 2023, EQT chose to take the company private again.

The commercial context is that in March SUSE's corporate owner EQT was reportedly considering selling it off again. ®