25 Years @SUSE, Countless Connections: My Path from Mainframes to Manuals

Geeko celebrating

Can you believe it? I’m truly celebrating 25 years here at SUSE. I dedicate this to my wonderful colleagues who’ve walked this path with me over the past 25 years and share similar stories. Many of them are also celebrating their 25th anniversaries this year, including @Harald Müller-Ney, @Tom Schraitle, @Rolf Schmidt, @Paul Zirnik, @Tania Stepan, and @Lars Marowsky-Brée, to name just a few. And I am sure they all share similar sentiments:

It feels like just yesterday, but also a whole lifetime, since I first stepped through these doors.

From Italian Literature and Theater & Mass Media to IT: An Unlikely Beginning

SUSE Product Marketing Team 2000

Honestly, if someone had told me 30+ years ago that I’d be working in Information Technology for a lifetime, I would have absolutely burst out laughing! My background, you see, is purely humanistic. Yes, I actually earned my Master of Arts degrees in IT(E) – but in my case, this stands for Italian Literature & Language, Theater and Mass Media, and Education. So, it’s funny how life works, but somehow, I found my “playground” in real IT three decades ago.

Finding My Playground: A Kismet Connection with Linux

My fascination with Linux and open source actually started even before I officially joined SUSE. Linux and I share the same birthday, August 25th – well – though not the same year :-). It almost feels like “kismet” that we met. Our very first encounter was way back in 1994. At the time, I was teaching Mass Media at the University of Erlangen. It was one of my students, a real Linux enthusiast, who first opened my eyes to the concept of open source, the community behind it, and Linux itself. He’s also the one who sparked my early interest in High Performance Computing – a technology area that, to this day, I find quite captivating.

I really started getting hands-on with Linux in 1998, and then, in 2000, I officially became part of the SUSE family.

My First Love in Product Marketing: HPC and Mainframes

Initially, I spent six weeks as a PR manager at SUSE, even publishing my first press release about SUSE Blinux, a Braille screen reader. Soon after, I moved into Product Marketing, a role I held for nearly 16 years. I was deeply involved in helping design and promote new products and market our Linux Services.

Birthday cake: 15th anniversary of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

One of my proudest achievements was being among the team that brought the very first Enterprise Linux server to market in 2000. This groundbreaking initiative started with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for S/390 (IBM mainframes). The mainframe, now known as IBM Z and LinuxOne, became my “first love” in this role. Luckily, I also was allowed to focus extensively on High Performance Computing (HPC), which remains a fascinating area for me. I realized HPC was often where new computing technologies were first tested, driving innovations we all benefit from today.

It was through this lens that I saw Linux, even then, as open and adaptable to bleeding-edge technology, pushing innovations we all benefit from today.

My work also included organizing bigger and smaller events, kicking off new programs, working closely with customers and partners for product and solution feedback, and even dabbling in podcasts and videos. During this period, I also wrote technical feature guides and whitepapers, often collaborating with super experienced colleagues from engineering and product management.

A New Chapter: The Eye-Opening World of Documentation

After nearly 16 years in Product Marketing, the SUSE documentation team “made me an offer I couldn’t refuse”! Around March 2016, I embraced a new role as a Documentation Strategist. My responsibilities now include helping to shape our documentation and standardizing technical documents across the entire company, a process that I’ve seen creates a win-win situation for everyone involved – for the teams, for documentation, and most importantly, for our customers and partners.

Geeko and Documentation

Additionally, I’m responsible for our special doc series, the SUSE Best Practices, and the Technical Reference Documentation, where I collaborate with subject matter experts from SUSE, our customers, or partners to create solution-based technical documents. Finally, a core part of my role is spreading the word about the excellent work done in documentation and engineering. I strongly believe that you should “make your work be visible, it does not hurt! In the contrary!”.

My time in documentation has been incredibly eye-opening. I quickly learned that documentation is an essential part of a product – above all when it comes to software, and its value is definitely underestimated. No single deployment or admin guide, quick start, or best practices paper “just falls like manna from heaven”. It takes hours and hours of research, discussions, tests, structuring, thinking, writing, revisions, editing, etc. I’ve also discovered that our documentation team members are not just a technical writer, but multi-talented individuals. This experience solidified my belief that behind great work, there is usually an amazing team. I’m deeply impressed by their concentrated experience, knowledge, cordiality, and cooperativeness.

Beyond Code: Purpose, Community, and Giving Back

The journey of Geeko and friends

My 25 years at SUSE have been filled with learning, strategic planning sessions, travel, conferences, writing, research, calls and video taping — and, importantly, friendship and fun. My colleagues were incredibly supportive and trustworthy, customers offered valuable insights that broadened my perspective, and partners’ demanding standards pushed us all to achieve excellence. I’ve grown with SUSE through its continuous evolution, like many of my colleagues embracing every reinvention and redesign with enduring confidence. The company’s ability to adapt has only deepened my conviction in its mission.

My personal philosophy has evolved to focus on liking what you do and having some impact in your own tiny little world. I still believe I can get things moving, and still feel a strong sense of purpose. Over the past few years, I’ve used the company’s generous volunteer day program to give back to the broader community. My recent efforts have included organizing a Garage Sale for German flood victims, handcrafting with Ukrainian children, and assisting the non-profit theater ‘Junge Bühne Kreßberg’ with their youth programs. The funds raised from these activities directly supported charities aiding in disaster relief and war recovery.

At the Core: the People

I firmly believe we make a real difference here at SUSE—we just need to get the word out! My favorite part of the job is collaborating with such a diverse and experienced group of people, whether they are from SUSE, our customer base, or our partners. This is truly what makes my work here so amazing and rewarding.

Here’s to what’s been, and whatever comes next in this incredible adventure called SUSE!

Disclaimer: All imagery used here is either official marketing material from the early 2000s or personal photos from my time at SUSE.