Android’s leadership team just underwent another change

The Android leadership team at Google is losing another key leader. Dave Burke, vice president of Android engineering, is “stepping back” from leading Android engineering and “moving into a consulting role as he explores AI/bio projects,” he said in an email. he posted on LinkedIn.

“AI has the potential to play a key role in accelerating drug discovery, with broad applicability, including in difficult-to-treat pediatric cancers, a topic close to my heart,” said Burke. “I am working with Sundar to explore relevant roles at Alphabet.” Burke has been on the Android team for 14 years.

Burke’s departure follows Google’s recent decision to combine its Android and hardware teams into a new “Platforms and Devices” team headed by Rick Osterloh. As part of this shift, Google announced that Hiroshi Lockheimer, who led Android, Chrome, and ChromeOS, would move on to other projects, and Sameer Samat would become president of the Android ecosystem.

In his email, Burke promised more details about what’s next for his former team. “It’s important to me to leave them in good hands with a well-thought-out succession plan,” he said. “We will be following up soon with some additional details on this change, so stay tuned for that.”

This suggests there could be more changes to the team beyond Burke’s departure, and 9to5Google reported Wednesday that Google’s platforms and devices team is “undergoing a reorganization.” Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported reorganization.

Google is already taking steps to combine parts of its ecosystems. On Wednesday, Google announced that ChromeOS would be built on parts of the Android technology stack, in part so it could implement AI features more quickly.