Microsoft confirms VP of developer division Somasegar is leaving after more than two decades

S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, is leaving the company. Microsoft confirmed the news with VentureBeat but wouldn’t share any details surrounding the departure.

ZDNet was first to break the story, noting that Microsoft cloud and enterprise executive vice president Scott Guthrie announced internally today that Somasegar would be leaving the company. The note said it was Somasegar’s decision to pursue the next phase of his career outside of Microsoft.

S. Somasegar, called affectionately by both Microsoft employees and press alike as Soma, has been at the company since 1989, according to his own post on Reddit. That would mean he’s been at the company for 26 years. Oddly, Guthrie’s note specifically said Soma has been employed by the company for 27 years. We’ve asked Microsoft for clarification — but either way, during more than two decades, Somasegar contributed to eight Windows releases before heading up the developer division.

In his most recent role, Soma was responsible for engineering and marketing Microsoft’s developer tools and services, programming languages, and runtimes. That includes everything to do with Visual Studio, the .NET Framework, and Team Foundation Server. He was also in charge of developer evangelism efforts across Microsoft’s various platforms, including pushing the company to support more open-source technologies.

Somasegar’s departure will be a big blow to Microsoft’s developer efforts, especially given the company’s big developer push surrounding Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. We suspect, however, that his plans to leave have been known for a while, and he was asked or simply decided to stay around until the latest round of Microsoft’s developer tools had launched.

Microsoft now has to tackle the herculean task of finding a replacement. We expect a transition plan will be made official before the end of the year, though it’s currently not clear if that means there will be promotions or a new hire.

Update: Soma just sent out a tweetstorm.

Today, we shared the news that I have decided to leave @Microsoft and pursue the next phase of my career.

— S. Somasegar (@SSomasegar) October 8, 2015

2/ It has been an absolutely great journey – working with such an amazing team and building great developer technologies.

— S. Somasegar (@SSomasegar) October 8, 2015

3/ Thanks to @scottgu @satyanadella @BillGates and so many other wonderful people I have worked with over the years.

— S. Somasegar (@SSomasegar) October 8, 2015

4/ I couldn't be more proud of what we've accomplished together over the last many years for the @Microsoft developer ecosystem.

— S. Somasegar (@SSomasegar) October 8, 2015

5/ Thanks to all of you who have contributed to the @Microsoft developer ecosystem and been such an important part of our community.

— S. Somasegar (@SSomasegar) October 8, 2015

6/ Looking forward to all the great things that @Microsoft will do for developers in the years ahead. @VisualStudio @dotnet @code

— S. Somasegar (@SSomasegar) October 8, 2015