SEATTLE — Microsoft has plucked a new chief technology officer from the ranks of LinkedIn, naming Kevin Scott to the newly created position.
Scott, 44, was formerly senior vice president of engineering for the professional social-networking firm, which Microsoft scooped up in a $26.2 billion deal sealed last month.
It will be Scott’s second stint at the Redmond company. While pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Virginia, Scott was an intern with Microsoft Research in 2001.
Later, he held software-engineering roles at Google and AdMob, and returned to Google when it acquired AdMob.
Scott has been at LinkedIn, based in Mountain View, Calif., since 2011.
In his new role, Scott will remain in the Bay Area, report to Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, and join the company’s senior leadership team. He will continue to oversee the engineering teams working on LinkedIn’s technology infrastructure.
It is unclear which Microsoft groups, if any, will report to Scott. A press release said he will “drive strategic, cross-company initiatives.”
In the new role, Scott holds the companywide chief technologist role once held by Nathan Myhrvold, the founder of Microsoft’s research unit, until he left the company in 1999. Myhrvold later went on to found patent-holding and research firm Intellectual Ventures.
Bill Gates later held a CTO-like chief software architect position after he stepped down as CEO in 2000. Gates passed that role on to Ray Ozzie, who also held the CTO label until he in 2010.
