San Francisco, Jun 9 (IANS): Following the recent exit of Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg and head of AI Jerome Pesenti, now top engineering executive David Mortenson is reportedly stepping down and will be replaced by Santosh Janardhan.

According to an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Santosh Janardhan, one of Mortenson's direct reports and a current VP of engineering, will assume the role later this month.

A spokesperson for Meta, Jon Carvill, confirmed the change.

"I am incredibly proud of everything we have achieved over the past two years. I have been supporting Infra," Mortenson, said in the memo, adding that the company "survived the biggest capacity crunch in the company's history (at least in the past decade)" -- likely a reference to supply chain constraints brought on by the global pandemic -- and "managed to stay productive as we shifted to work from home".

Mortenson's role oversees the "teams responsible for developing and operating the hardware, network, software and data centers that all Meta services run on," according to the company's website.

He has been at Meta for 11 years in various engineering leadership roles and took the top job about two years ago. He is leaving his role, but says he is not leaving Meta for now.

He will take a long break and says in the memo that "once I get back, I will figure out what's next for me," the report said.

Recently, Meta announced that Sandberg will step down from the COO post later this year. And later, the company said that Pesenti, Meta's VP of AI, will depart in mid-June after helping it through the early stages of the AI transition.