Who Is Thomas Dohmke? GitHub CEO Resigns, To Become Startup Founder Again

Thomas Dohmke, the CEO of GitHub, has announced he is resigning from the company to become a startup founder. GitHub will continue to work under Microsoft’s CoreAI organisation, Dohmke said, adding further details will be shared soon.

“I’ll be staying through the end of 2025 to help guide the transition and am leaving with a deep sense of pride in everything we’ve built as a remote-first organisation spread around the world,” he said in a blog post.

Thomas Dohmke has been GitHub’s CEO since 2021. He joined Microsoft in 2015 after it acquired his startup, HockeyApp. In 2018, Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion and Dohmke became GitHub’s product chief in mid-2021. A few months later, he succeeded Nat Friedman as CEO.

In January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the creation of a new division called the CoreAI–Platform and Tools, led by Jay Parikh, a former Meta executive. GitHub has been integrated under this group, aligning it closely with Microsoft’s advancing AI strategy.

As per an internal note from Parikh, three senior leaders at GitHub, Vladimir Fedorov, Kyle Daigle and Elizabeth Pemmerl, will now report directly to Julia Liuson, who heads Microsoft’s Developer Division, according to CNBC.

GitHub serves a community of over 150 million developers worldwide, providing them with tools to create, manage and work together on software projects, according to its website. 

According to his LinkedIn profile, Thomas Dohmke holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Technische Universitat Berlin (TU Berlin) and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Glasgow.

His doctoral research was notable for applying test-driven development, traditionally a software engineering practice, to mechanical engineering’s control system design. By blending these fields, he was able to create new methods for how software and mechanical systems collaborate, highlighting his strength in combining abstract theory with real-world applications.

From 1998 to 2002, he was the founder and CEO of ToDoSoft. The company was engaged in developing insurance software for Windows. From 2002 to 2006, he was with DaimlerChrysler. He served as a systems engineer and contributed to the creation of advanced control technologies for premium cars. From January 2007 to December 2008, he worked as a project manager at Robert Bosch GmbH.