Jeff Sandquist, Microsoft's senior director of developer relationships, is leaving after 16 years to join Twitter, where he'll be working with the social networking site's ecosystem partners.
"Change invigorates the soul. I am joining the flock at @twitter on October 14, as Director of Platform Partnerships," Sandquist tweeted Tuesday to his more than 4,300 followers.
On his LinkedIn profile, Sandquist said "getting apps on the Microsoft platform" is one of the main aspects of his job at the company.
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"Whether it is on Windows, Windows Phone, Open Source, Android or Apple, if you are building apps, my team and I want to talk to you," reads the description on his profile.
Sandquist is also co-founder of Microsoft's Channel 9 Developer Community and the Channel 9 blog. "My team and I grew this online community from zero visitors to millions of unique Developers visiting each month," Sandquist said in a post to his personal blog.
Sandquist has also overseen content for Microsoft's many developer-focused conferences over the years. "Been to a Microsoft event like BUILD, MIX, PDC or TechEd? My team created the experience end to end, online, offline and around the world," he says on his blog.
Steven Guggenheimer, vice president of Microsoft 's Developer and Platform Evangelism group, was one of the first to high-five Sandquist on his career move, tweeting "congratulations to Jeff, great new role with our friends at Twitter!!"
Sandquist fills a position that had been vacant since the end of June when Ryan Sarver, Twitter's director of platform partnerships since 2009, left the company.
Twitter declined to comment on what sort of role Sandquist will play at the company.
In a job listing posted after Sarver's departure, Twitter said the director of platform partnerships oversees ecosystem partners that "integrate Twitter into applications, devices, and Web sites."
The position also entails working across Twitter's product, engineering, analytics, sales and business development teams, on "important platform products such as Twitter Cards, Twitter for Websites, Twitter APIs, Ads API, the Vine Platform, our mobile platform and much more," the company said in the job listing.
PUBLISHED SEPT. 17, 2013
