Senior People Business Partner
About the role
SUSE is a global leader of enterprise open source software. By transforming community innovations into secure, sovereign and AI-ready solutions, SUSE empowers customers to escape vendor lock-in and regain control of their IT destiny. Through industry-leading Linux, Kubernetes, Edge and AI infrastructure solutions, SUSE delivers the flexibility to innovate everywhere—from the data center to multi-cloud and out to the edge. Only SUSE also manages many Linux and Kubernetes distributions. At SUSE, Choice Happens because we prioritize community, interoperability and relentless innovation. Discover how we power mission-critical resilience at www.suse.com.
Job Description
Role Overview: The world of work is changing and so is the profession of HR. No-one knows what the future will look like. This is an opportunity to shape it. This role will play a key part in shaping the future of work at SUSE - both in the functions you partner with and in the People Business Partner role itself. This is not a traditional or transactional HR role, absorbed in repetitive admin and processes. We are looking for a Strategic Consultant and Creative Change Catalyst. Our team is evolving along our ambitious multi-year capability roadmap. You will find us operating from an established foundation as trusted, credible counsels and in a phase of accelerating our impact. We are looking for someone who is excited to help us continue to elevate our impact, maximising technology and human value creation whilst navigating today’s reality - we have work to do on our processes, systems and ways of working.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Consultant: Architect and deliver the 3-Year Strategy: Partner with senior business leaders to deliver performance through alignment of their business strategy with the FY27–FY30 People Strategy, with a focus on long-term value creation.
Drive Business Impact & ROI: Focus on measurable people and business outcomes, evaluating people initiatives through metrics, and return on investment (ROI).
Navigate Volatility: Act as a trusted partner helping leaders navigate the volatility of external forces with confidence and strategic courage.
Industry-leading organisation building: Partner with the business to operate as an industry-leading organisation, leading and delivering customer and people focused change and transformation.
Work Redesign & Technological Transformation: An AI-First Team Builder: Serve as a catalyst for AI adoption and growth of AI fluency within our teams, partner with the business to lead the human and cultural side of AI transformation, balancing rapid AI adoption with ethical stewardship and psychological safety.
Unlock Capability: Build AI confidence within leadership teams, unlocking digital capabilities across SUSE to turn potential industry threats into distinct business opportunities.
Task-First Work design: In order to understand what transformation means to our people, we must first understand the work itself. Partner with leaders and teams to challenge existing workflows, evaluate how work happens today and how it can be done tomorrow, identify tasks that should be automated through technology and the high-value work that must remain deeply human. Support the re-design of work in order to maximise efficiency and customer-value whilst enabling our people to engage in meaningful, high-impact, purpose-driven work.
Preserve and Nurture Culture: As we automate transactional tasks, champion the how. Intentionally invest in human connection, wellbeing, collaboration, and psychological safety as key drivers of corporate value.
High Performance Org & Skills-Based Talent: Performance Coaching: Coach and elevate business leaders into high-impact performance coaches. High Performance team building and Facilitation: Identify opportunities to create and deliver team and leadership development interventions at meetings, offsites etc. Skills-Based Architecture: Lead the ongoing transformation toward a skills-based organization, defining what skills are needed to deliver our strategy and company goals. Engagement: Identify opportunities and solutions to continuously improve employee experience and engagement.
Collaborator and Connector: Collaborating with our broader people team: (including Employee Relations, Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, Learning and Development, HR Ops, Engagement & Wellbeing), evolving how we work together, and what we deliver, whilst supporting each other to feel meaning, purpose and joy in our work. Building community, relationships and connections across the business: to continuously improve how we collaborate and deliver results.
Skills
Stakeholder Influence and partnership: Building influence and trust with senior leaders and team members across the world, when you don't share an office.
Strategic Courage: The bravery to challenge the status quo, speak truth, have difficult conversations and notice what will help us go faster and be better.
Talent Strategy: Defining and mapping the skills needed, available and emerging. Translating business strategy into talent strategy. Leveraging and embedding talent programmes and initiatives for maximum impact to build skills, opportunities and internal mobility in support of our goal to be a world-class talent builder.
Change Leadership: A proactive, positive, leader of change. Observing opportunities, asking 'what if' and helping others see the 'why'. Making things happen and bringing people along with you in large-scale transformation. Going beyond delivery of a change plan, to landing a change for business impact.
Work and Organizational Design: Alongside the more traditional organisation design, work design is an emerging skill within the People profession; we would love to learn this skill together.
Data Analysis and Storytelling: Our core data is good; you will need to be able to translate that data into a simple, compelling message that influences leaders to act. Our reporting and ambition for predictive analytics is a work in progress; you will need to be able to navigate the reality of today whilst we work to build our analytics of the future.
Strategic Consulting and Coaching: Scale and build leadership capability and performance through coaching, knowing when to be a consultant and when to be a coach, going beyond ‘responsive order-taking’ to understand business problems and proposing solutions.
Facilitation: Creating opportunities within the teams you partner, to facilitate learning moments and sessions eg. offsite team meetings, all hands calls etc.
Emotional Intelligence: The 'human' in Human Resources. Role modelling Emotional Intelligence and empathy to build trust and psychological safety. Understanding your own emotions and those of others. The ability to listen actively, accurately understand another's perspective, and adapt to their needs. Supporting leaders and team members develop these skills.
Systems thinking: The ability to see the whole organisation as an interconnected, living system, not just a set of separate departments/processes. Solving root causes, not just symptoms.
Tech-Forward & Curious: An active curiosity regarding the future of work, fluent in AI tools, with understanding of how technology expands what is possible, and a proficient user of enterprise tools like Workday.
What We Offer
We empower you to be bold, driving your career to create the future you want. We celebrate and reward your achievements. SUSE is a dynamic environment that is evolving rapidly, thus requiring agility, strong entrepreneurship and an open mind. This is a compelling opportunity for the right person to join us as we continue to scale and prosper. If you’re a big thinker, obsessed by execution and thrive in a dynamic environment in which you can tangibly create a lasting legacy, then please apply now!
What You Will Get
A truly open community where everyone is welcome, has a voice and is encouraged to reach their full potential regardless of age, gender, race, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, religion, or any other characteristics.
The freedom to be yourself in a global community of unique individuals – like you – with different backgrounds, talents, skills and perspectives.
Our Values
Choice: We are continuously making choice happen
Community: Nobody is smarter than everybody
Trust: We are trusted to deliver with integrity
Innovation: We foster a culture of experimentation, and embrace change by challenging the norm