Back in 2007, we wrote about Google engineering manager Kevin Scott’s move to mobile ad network AdMob. Back then AdMob was just a fledgling startup. Of course, two years later AdMob was acquired by Google for $750 million and Scott joined his previous employer via the deal. Today, we’ve confirmed that Scott has joined professional social network LinkedIn as VP of engineering, and will be working on developing new products and services for the company.
This is a big talent win for LinkedIn. At AdMob, Scott ran the entire technology team and helped scale the mobile ad network by 30 times. At Google, Kevin built teams to increase relevance and ROI for ad serving. He also worked on improving search infrastructure and the search user interface. His technical expertise areas include machine learning, distributed algorithms, large-scale distributed systems, and information retrieval.
LinkedIn has been “beefing up” its own advertising technologies, so Scott could be helping develop innovations around an ad platform.
There have been reports floating around that AdMob was having a rough transition at parent company Google. CEO and AdMob founder Omar Hamoui left Google only five months after the mobile ad network was officially acquired by the search giant. And a number of other execs and employees have followed Hamoui’s lead to join startups in the mobile advertising space.
Beyond the report that the Google-AdMob integration isn’t going so hot, the talent exodus is also an indication of the challenge that the search giant faces when it comes to retaining key employees. Most recently, Google Scientist and Tech Lead Daniel Tunkelang and senior software engineer for the Android platform Cedric Beust both left the company to join LinkedIn.