# Meta's longtime infrastructure chief Santosh Janardhan steps down, and Amazon veteran Dave Brown takes over

> Janardhan, at Meta since 2009 and recently put in charge of Meta Compute, moves to an advisory role as the company's AI data center spending soars.

- URL: https://devisdead.ai/news/meta-s-longtime-infrastructure-chief-santosh-janardhan-steps-down-and-ex-aws-vet
- Published: 2026-11-11T20:19:45Z
- Author: DevIsDead Newsroom
- Section: AI
- Tags: meta, infrastructure, data centers, leadership
- Originally reported by TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/11/meta-is-losing-its-longtime-head-of-infrastructure/).

Santosh Janardhan, who has run Meta's infrastructure for years and shares the top engineering job, is leaving the role, Lucas Ropek reports for [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/11/meta-is-losing-its-longtime-head-of-infrastructure/). Bloomberg first reported the news from an internal memo.

## Who's taking over

His replacement is Dave Brown, hired this year as Meta's infrastructure VP. Brown spent 19 years at Amazon working on compute, cloud and AI, according to his LinkedIn.

## A slow exit

Janardhan isn't leaving right away. A Meta representative said he'll stay for the transition and move into an advisory role on Meta Compute, and he's expected to leave next year. His memo reportedly spoke of passing the baton, but neither it nor Meta gave a reason.

## Why it matters

Janardhan joined in 2009 and helped build the infrastructure behind Meta's growth. His job got much bigger recently: Meta's infrastructure spending has exploded in the AI race, and earlier this year he was put in charge of Meta Compute, the effort to scale up its data center investments.

**[Scoreboard](/scoreboard) update:** Draw. The person who built Meta's machines hands them to a cloud veteran mid-buildout.

Stay undead.