In a swift and unexpected move, Jared Palmer has departed his role as Vice President of Engineering at Xbox, a position he held for just two months. Palmer, who was appointed to work directly with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma on "our most complex product and engineering problems," has announced he is joining AI company Cognition as its Vice President of Engineering.
Palmer announced the move on LinkedIn, stating he was "grateful to Asha and everyone at Microsoft and Xbox for an amazing year," and expressed excitement for the new chapter. His tenure at Xbox was brief, but it followed a similarly short stint as Vice President of Product at Microsoft's CoreAI division, which lasted just eight months. Before that, he spent four years as VP of AI at Vercel.
Cognition, the company Palmer is joining, is the developer of Devin, which the company describes as "the first autonomous software engineer." Devin can plan, write, test, and ship production code independently, working inside a company's existing codebase and tools. This move signals a continued focus on AI for Palmer, a clear area of expertise.
A Blow to Xbox's Engineering Ambitions
Sharma had previously stated that Palmer would focus on "developer tooling, taste, and infrastructure." His departure leaves those complex problems unresolved, though the great likelihood is that Cognition's focus is simply more up his alley than a struggling videogame platform. The optics of losing a hand-picked executive for a vital role so quickly are not great. Thus far, Sharma has not publicly acknowledged Palmer's departure. Microsoft has not yet commented on the move.