Microsoft is losing another long-serving senior executive, with Julia Liuson, the head of its developer division, set to resign after 34 years at the company, according to an internal memo seen by The Verge.
Liuson will remain in her current role through the end of June before transitioning to an advisory position reporting to Jay Parikh, head of Microsoft CoreAI, the division overseeing the company's artificial intelligence infrastructure and engineering.
In the memo, Liuson said she had been considering the move for some time and told chief executive Satya Nadella and Parikh in January that the timing felt right.
She has led Microsoft's developer division, known internally as DevDiv, for 12 years, a tenure that spanned the company's pronounced shift toward open-source software and its $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub, the code-hosting platform, in 2018.
Liuson also took on expanded responsibilities following the departure of Thomas Dohmke, the former GitHub chief executive, who resigned less than a year ago, after which Microsoft chose not to appoint a replacement and folded GitHub's leadership into the CoreAI team.
Her exit is the latest in a succession of high-profile departures from Microsoft's senior ranks.
Phil Spencer, the long-standing head of Xbox, and Sarah Bond, who served as Xbox president, have both recently left the company, adding to a pattern of experienced leadership turnover that has drawn attention inside and outside the organisation.
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Microsoft has not named a successor to Liuson, and the company has not confirmed whether DevDiv will report directly to Parikh once her transition completes in June or whether a new divisional leader will be appointed.
The developer division encompasses a broad portfolio including Visual Studio, the widely used software development environment, as well as GitHub, which has become a central pillar of Microsoft's AI-assisted coding strategy through its Copilot product.
The recap
- Julia Liuson resigns as head of Microsoft’s developer division.
- She has worked at Microsoft for 34 years and led DevDiv 12 years.
- Liuson will remain through end of June, then advisory role.