SUSE to cut 10% of staff, blaming AI and automation
What's the deal? SUSEDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → will cut about 10% of its roughly 1,900-person workforce — around 190 jobs — with chief executive Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen blaming "automation and AI" in a memo sent to all staff on November 2. The German open-source Linux firm, owned by Swedish private equity firm EQT, did not say which roles or countries are affected.
What's the reasoning? Van Leeuwen, a former Red Hat executive who became CEO in 2023, said the company reviewed its strategy, skills, and team structures before deciding. "AI capabilities are advancing exponentially, forcing us to radically reimagine our work," he wrote, adding that SUSE's current "organizational design and cost base" would not carry it forward.
He said "modern tooling" is already letting teams move faster with less overhead and flatter reporting lines, and that "the requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished."
What happens next? The timeline is tight. Affected staff will be told by November 4, employee representatives nominated the next day, and one-to-one meetings begin the following week. SUSE will present its fiscal year 2027 strategy to the rest of the company on November 16.
Why now? The cuts follow a September voluntary-separation offer that, according to The RegisterDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, did not draw enough takers. The move also lands as EQT — which bought SUSE from Micro Focus for $2.5 billion in 2018, listed it in Frankfurt in 2021, and took it private again in 2023 — has reportedly explored a sale valuing SUSE at up to $6 billion.
What could go wrong? The memo names AI as the cause but does not quantify any productivity gains, so the link rests on management's rationale rather than demonstrated proof. The cuts also contrast with SUSE's public push to sell AI products: on October 27, it announced new agentic AI capabilities for its Linux management tools. Staff at its Prague office formed a union earlier this year, which may complicate the process in that geography.
The signal: SUSE is the latest software vendor to pin layoffs directly on AI rather than demand softness or routine cost-cutting. For buyers weighing enterprise renewals, that framing — an incumbent claiming its own tools now reduce the need for internal headcount — is one to expect more often.
Read more: thenextweb.com, The Register
Image credit: SUSE
