Jay Parikh, ex-Meta engineer joins Micorsoft Senior Leadership – Yurika.R

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella welcomes Jay Parikh, saying his “expertise both as a technology leader and builder of scale systems will be an invaluable addition” to the company

By Vishnu Kaimal

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced on Oct. 31, 2024, that Jay Parikh would be the latest addition to Microsoft’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT), where he will be reporting directly to Nadella. Parikh was formerly the Global Head of Engineering at Facebook and before his transition to Microsoft, he served as the CEO of Lacework, a cloud security services provider.

Parikh boasts impressive knowledge about cloud infrastructure and security for DevOps. The tech leader has had a long and storied career over several verticals in the software, startup and VC ecosystems that make him a remarkable value add to the senior leadership at the software giant. His unique perspective and experience when it comes to scaling and building technical teams that serve commercial consumers, made him an appealing candidate for Microsoft’s senior leadership.

READ: In shareholder letter, Satya Nadella touts Microsoft’s record AI growth, expands future vision (October 24, 2024)

“Welcome to Microsoft, Jay! Your expertise both as a technology leader and builder of scale systems will be an invaluable addition to our company. Looking forward to the impact you will have here as we increase our depth and capability across our business priorities,” Nadella commented on Parikh’s LinkedIn post announcing his latest role.

However, Parikh is more than just an engineer, or a tech guy, Nadella addressed Microsoft employees and shared via the company’s blog; Nadella said Parikh is passionate about people, specifically in developing them and building world-class talent all in an effort to take Microsoft to the next level in customer satisfaction and business growth.

Parikh said that he was excited to join the “awesome team at Microsoft” and highlighted Microsoft’s commitment to leading the AI platform shift in his post.

“This shift not only is a tremendous opportunity, but it is incomprehensibly complex – both of these aspects are the perfect combinations for what I’m drawn to,” he noted.

READ: Microsoft appoints Aparna Gupta Global Delivery Center leader (November 29, 2023)

Parikh joined Facebook (now Meta) in 2009 and was responsible for working on technical infrastructure for the social media giant. With an impressive resume at Facebook, Parikh has led several technical projects for the company, including the Aquila drone project, which is an experimental solar-powered drone developed by Facebook to be used as an atmospheric satellite. He was also involved in the company’s initiative in subsea cables. The subsea cables project invests in fiber optic cables that connect points on an ocean floor.

Apart from Meta, Parikh’s leadership roles in Akamai, and Ning, make him qualified to tackle both cloud computing as well as the challenges of social media development and engineering, Nadella said.

While Microsoft is yet to share more on Parikh’s role and focus in the “next few months,” the newest team member has set his LinkedIn title to “Executive Vice President at Microsoft.”

Both Nadella and Parikh seem excited for the future of Microsoft, according to their interaction on LinkedIn and Nadella’s welcome address.