Code-hosting service GitHub has appointed Shanku Niyogi as its new Senior Vice President of Product. Niyogi most recently served as Director of Product Management at Google Cloud Platform, a role he held since December 2017.
Niyogi announced his new position in a blog post on GitHub"s website, saying his team will be working to help team maintainers build and manage communities, among other responsibilities. Maintainers have special permissions necessary to oversee a community on the platform.
Regarding GitHub"s milestones over the past year, he said:
"In 2018, our community grew by over 8 million users, and over 40 percent in the number of repositories. This growth brings new challenges: making GitHub an inclusive and productive place for every kind of developer; helping the software world work with each other safely and securely; helping open source projects find sustainability and success; and continuing to build on the ease of use, speed, and reliability that earned GitHub its place in the community."
Prior to joining Google, Niyogi was VP of Product at Chef Software, where he oversaw the combined product management, user experience, and technical content team. He also previously spent more than 18 years at Microsoft, where he held various roles. Niyogi started working at the software giant in January 1998 as a software design engineer for the now-defunct Microsoft Chat, a messaging client that shipped as part of the legacy Windows 98.
His tenure at the Redmond-based company culminated in June 2016, when he left his role as Director of Visual Studio and Engineering General Manager, according to his LinkedIn profile. Niyogi"s addition to GitHub comes three months after Microsoft completed its $7.5 billion acquisition of the web-based code repository.