SUSE to cut about 190 jobs, a tenth of its staff, as Linux veteran blames AI and automation

03/11/2026
6
Abstract grid of green tiles with several missing and greyed out, symbolising job cuts

By Steve, European news scout, European Tech On Heels. Image: computer-generated abstract illustration.

SUSE, one of Europe's oldest open-source software companies, is cutting about 10% of its global workforce, roughly 190 of its approximately 1,900 employees, and is putting the decision down to artificial intelligence.

The cuts were first reported on Monday 2 November by The Register, which saw an internal email from chief executive Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen. German tech site heise online and Swiss trade outlet Inside IT have since reported the memo's contents. SUSE had not posted a statement in its own newsroom, according to The Next Web.

"What is clear is that automation and AI are fundamentally shifting how software companies operate," van Leeuwen wrote, according to The Register. He told staff that the organisational structure and cost base "on which SUSE is based today will not lead us successfully into the future" (translated, via heise), and that "the requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished."

What happens next

The timetable is tight. Affected employees are to be told by Wednesday 4 November, employee representatives will be nominated on Thursday, and one-to-one meetings begin next week, The Register reported. The rest of the company will be briefed on SUSE's strategy for fiscal year 2027 on 16 November.

What the memo leaves out matters as much as what it says. It does not specify which functions or sites are affected, so it is not yet clear how many jobs will go in Germany, where SUSE was founded in Fürth in 1992 and still has its main engineering base in Nuremberg, and how many elsewhere. In Germany, compulsory redundancies at this scale normally involve the works council, which could slow or reshape the plan.

Volunteers were not enough

The cuts follow a quieter attempt to shrink. In September SUSE asked long-serving staff whether they would accept voluntary separation, according to The Register. Heise reports that not enough people took the offer, so the company has now moved to compulsory redundancies.

The AI explanation deserves some scepticism. SUSE has a financial owner looking at its options. EQT bought the company from Micro Focus in 2018 for $2.5bn, listed it in Frankfurt in 2021 and took it private again in 2023 at a valuation of nearly $3bn (heise). In March, Reuters reported that EQT was considering a sale, with a price of up to $6bn mentioned, according to heise. Cutting costs before a possible sale is standard private-equity practice. Describing those cuts as an AI transition is a better story for employees and for buyers.

Just a week earlier, on 27 October, SUSE announced new agentic AI features for its Linux management tools. The company is selling AI to customers and, in the same weeks, using AI to justify a smaller payroll.

Why it matters for European tech

SUSE is one of a handful of European companies with global weight in core enterprise infrastructure, and it is often held up as a sovereign alternative to US vendors such as Red Hat. Its cuts add to a growing list of employers linking job reductions to AI, from Barclays (5,000 jobs) to American Express (5% of staff), as reported by The Next Web.

Former SUSE engineer Christian Brauner was blunt on Mastodon: "It's sad that this pointless churn in the name of profit maximizing keeps happening to a great company."

The numbers to watch are how many of the 190 jobs are in Germany, whether engineering is hit as well as sales and administration, and what the FY2027 strategy presented on 16 November says about EQT's plans.

Sources

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SUSE to cut about 190 jobs, a tenth of its staff, as Linux veteran blames AI and automation

03/11/2026
6
Abstract grid of green tiles with several missing and greyed out, symbolising job cuts

By Steve, European news scout, European Tech On Heels. Image: computer-generated abstract illustration.

SUSE, one of Europe's oldest open-source software companies, is cutting about 10% of its global workforce, roughly 190 of its approximately 1,900 employees, and is putting the decision down to artificial intelligence.

The cuts were first reported on Monday 2 November by The Register, which saw an internal email from chief executive Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen. German tech site heise online and Swiss trade outlet Inside IT have since reported the memo's contents. SUSE had not posted a statement in its own newsroom, according to The Next Web.

"What is clear is that automation and AI are fundamentally shifting how software companies operate," van Leeuwen wrote, according to The Register. He told staff that the organisational structure and cost base "on which SUSE is based today will not lead us successfully into the future" (translated, via heise), and that "the requirement for some existing roles has greatly diminished."

What happens next

The timetable is tight. Affected employees are to be told by Wednesday 4 November, employee representatives will be nominated on Thursday, and one-to-one meetings begin next week, The Register reported. The rest of the company will be briefed on SUSE's strategy for fiscal year 2027 on 16 November.

What the memo leaves out matters as much as what it says. It does not specify which functions or sites are affected, so it is not yet clear how many jobs will go in Germany, where SUSE was founded in Fürth in 1992 and still has its main engineering base in Nuremberg, and how many elsewhere. In Germany, compulsory redundancies at this scale normally involve the works council, which could slow or reshape the plan.

Volunteers were not enough

The cuts follow a quieter attempt to shrink. In September SUSE asked long-serving staff whether they would accept voluntary separation, according to The Register. Heise reports that not enough people took the offer, so the company has now moved to compulsory redundancies.

The AI explanation deserves some scepticism. SUSE has a financial owner looking at its options. EQT bought the company from Micro Focus in 2018 for $2.5bn, listed it in Frankfurt in 2021 and took it private again in 2023 at a valuation of nearly $3bn (heise). In March, Reuters reported that EQT was considering a sale, with a price of up to $6bn mentioned, according to heise. Cutting costs before a possible sale is standard private-equity practice. Describing those cuts as an AI transition is a better story for employees and for buyers.

Just a week earlier, on 27 October, SUSE announced new agentic AI features for its Linux management tools. The company is selling AI to customers and, in the same weeks, using AI to justify a smaller payroll.

Why it matters for European tech

SUSE is one of a handful of European companies with global weight in core enterprise infrastructure, and it is often held up as a sovereign alternative to US vendors such as Red Hat. Its cuts add to a growing list of employers linking job reductions to AI, from Barclays (5,000 jobs) to American Express (5% of staff), as reported by The Next Web.

Former SUSE engineer Christian Brauner was blunt on Mastodon: "It's sad that this pointless churn in the name of profit maximizing keeps happening to a great company."

The numbers to watch are how many of the 190 jobs are in Germany, whether engineering is hit as well as sales and administration, and what the FY2027 strategy presented on 16 November says about EQT's plans.

Sources

Recent

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