Yahoo’s top engineer who heads up mobile app development for the company, Sandeep Gupta, just resigned, I have learned. It is another blow to Yahoo’s mobile ambitions. Gupta is a rock star mobile engineer who previously worked at Apple in charge of the iPod software and UI teams. At Yahoo, Gupta was in charge of creating all mobile apps for phones and tablets. He led the teams which launched the iPhone apps for Flickr, Fantasy Sports, Yahoo! Finance, and Yahoo! Messenger, as well as Yahoo! Entertainment on the iPad.
Gupta’s title was Senior Director, Application Development, according to his LinkedIn profile. It still lists Yahoo as his current job:
I currently lead the Application Development efforts at Yahoo!. I am responsible for all aspects of development including UI, Engineering, QA and Program management for both mobile and tablet devices. I work with the executive team to shape and define Yahoo’s Mobile applications, and then execute on them, conforming to a defined schedule. To this end I assembled a best of class team to deliver best of breed applications for Yahoo.
Yahoo’s mobile team has seen a series of high-level departures since Carol Bartz took over as CEo, starting with former mobile chief Marco Boerries and chief scientist Marc Davis.
Update: Yahoo has confirmed the departure.
Photo credit: Flickr/Marc Davis.