Meta names new head of engineering as current leader steps aside

Another executive change is hitting Meta after the recently announced departures of COO Sheryl Sandberg and head of AI Jerome Pesenti.

David Mortenson, the company’s top engineering leader responsible for its data centers and core infrastructure, is stepping down from his role, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. Santosh Janardhan, one of his direct reports and a current VP of engineering, will assume the role later this month. A spokesperson for Meta, Jon Carvill, confirmed the change.

“I’m incredibly proud of everything we’ve achieved over the past two years I’ve been supporting Infra,” says Mortenson in the memo, adding that the company “survived the biggest capacity crunch in the company’s history (at least in the past decade)” — likely a reference to supply chain constraints brought on by the global pandemic — and “managed to stay productive as we shifted to work from home.”

Mortenson’s role oversees the “teams responsible for developing and operating the hardware, network, software and data centers that all Meta services run on,” according to the company’s website. He has been at Meta for 11 years in various engineering leadership roles and took the top job about two years ago. He is leaving his role but says he isn’t leaving Meta for now. He’ll take a long break and says in the memo that “once I get back, I’ll figure out what’s next for me.”