Building the next phase of GitHub, together

This morning, I shared the following post with Hubbers in response to Nat’s announcement about his next adventure. I am thrilled to take on the role of CEO to build the next phase of GitHub for our global community of software developers.

Building the next phase of GitHub, together

Hello Hubbers! I am tremendously honored and excited to be stepping into the role of GitHub CEO on November 15th. I am very grateful for Nat’s leadership over the last three years and I am looking forward to working with him in his new capacity as Chairman Emeritus.

Leading the home for all developers, working more closely with all of you and the entire GitHub community, is truly a dream fulfilled. I started coding in the late 1980s on a Robotron KC 87 and then on a Commodore 64. I discovered Linux and the open source community while I was a student at The Technical University of Berlin. I have developed software for all kinds of projects and industries, from insurance software to automotive control systems and mobile apps. It was these mobile app projects that led me to found HockeyApp in 2011, solving some of the pain points that iOS and Android developers saw at the time. Building the best tools for developers has since become the main focus of my daily work.

I joined GitHub in 2018 after leading the acquisition by Microsoft with Nat. Throughout my time here, I’ve managed several special projects, like our move to make private repos free to all developers, the GitHub Archive Program, and the acquisitions of Dependabot, npm, and Semmle. As Chief Product Officer, I’m proud of the work our teams have done to bring new capabilities to GitHub Codespaces, Issues, Copilot, and many of the 20,000 improvements that we shipped last year. Together, we’ve built a roadmap that will transform the developer experience for open source maintainers and enterprises using GitHub for years to come.

I cannot wait to begin this journey as GitHub’s new CEO and continue to make GitHub better for all developers. We will remain customer obsessed, working to support teams of all sizes and projects of all scopes—from students that are just learning to code, small and really big open source projects that span the globe, to the world’s largest enterprises. And of course, we will continue to operate independently as a community, platform, and business. This means that GitHub will retain its developer-first values, distinctive spirit, and open extensibility. We will always support developers in their choice of any language, license, tool, platform, or cloud.

As I look towards the future, I’m so thankful for our team at GitHub. We get to come to work every day and make GitHub a little bit better for the world’s developers. The last three years have been monumental for GitHub and I truly believe we are at the start of the golden era for developer tools. Let’s get started building the next phase of GitHub, together.

— Thomas Dohmke

Written by

Thomas Dohmke

@ashtom

Fascinated by software development since his childhood in Germany, Thomas Dohmke has built a career building tools developers love and accelerating innovations that are changing software development. Currently, Thomas is Chief Executive Officer of GitHub, where he has overseen the launch of the world's first at-scale AI developer tool, GitHub Copilot -- and now, GitHub Copilot X. Before his time at GitHub, Thomas previously co-founded HockeyApp and led the company as CEO through its acquisition by Microsoft in 2014, and holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Glasgow, UK.