In this study, three austenitic stainless steels with different compositions are compared in terms of their deformation behaviour. Two of the investigated steels have considerable high nitrogen content which affects their deformation behaviour. The deformation properties and microstructure of the materials were studied by tensile testing and electron backscatter diffraction. We observe that the strain hardening rate curve of the alloy with low nitrogen content shows a continuously decreasing slope, whereas those of the high‑nitrogen steels exhibit a clear plateau. Since no twinning or ε-phase formation is observed at the corresponding strain levels, we suggest that the addition of a large amount of nitrogen suppresses cross-slip and promotes dislocation planarisation. The microstructural evolution of the materials during deformation supports the above scenario. Based on the results of the ab initio calculations, the deformation behaviour of high‑nitrogen alloys cannot be explained in terms of the stacking fault energy.