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SUSE to cut about 10% of staff, citing automation and AI
Open source software vendor SUSE plans to reduce its global workforce by about 10 percent. In an internal message, CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen says automation and AI are changing how software companies operate.
SUSE, an open source software vendor for businesses, will cut its global workforce by about 10 percent. According to The Register, which saw the internal message to employees, management cites the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on how software companies operate.
What management wrote
According to The Register, the message went to about 1,900 employees from CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, a former Red Hat executive who has led SUSE since March 2023. In it, he wrote that the company is announcing a reduction of its global workforce by about 10 percent.
What is clear is that automation and AI are fundamentally shifting how software companies operate. - Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, CEO of SUSE (from an internal message to employees)
In the same message, the CEO argues that modern tooling is already changing daily work, so teams can move faster with less operational overhead and flatter reporting lines. He added that the requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished.
Van Leeuwen also said that the current organizational design and cost base will not allow the company to keep growing, and that the decisions reflect shifting needs, not an assessment of employees' talent or commitment.
Timeline and background
Employees affected by the cuts are to be notified by 4 November. Employee representatives are to be nominated a day later, and one-to-one meetings will begin at the start of the following week. The rest of the organization will learn the fiscal year 2027 strategy on 16 November.
This follows a September report from The Register that SUSE had asked long-serving employees whether they would take voluntary separation. The company is owned by Swedish private equity firm EQT, which bought it from Micro Focus in 2018 and took it off the stock exchange in 2023.
What remains unclear
The message does not say which roles will be eliminated. It is therefore unclear how much of the cuts actually stems from replacing work with AI tools, and how much from costs and restructuring.
For Polish IT teams that run SUSE in their server infrastructure, there is no information yet about changes to the product offering or support. The case does show, however, that SUSE's leadership links the job cuts to AI in an internal message to staff, without giving measurable productivity results.
