Santosh Janardhan, Meta's head of infrastructure and co-head of engineering, will step down from leading the company's infrastructure organization, he told staff in an internal memo on Wednesday, November 11. Dave Brown, a former Amazon Web Services executive who joined Meta earlier this year as vice president of infrastructure, will succeed him.
Janardhan plans to leave Meta in early 2027 and will stay through the first quarter to support Brown during the transition. A Meta representative said he is moving into an advisory role on Meta Compute, the company's long-range computing capacity initiative. The memo did not give a reason for the change.
“The chapter I have had the privilege of leading is now coming to a close and it's time to pass the baton.”— Santosh Janardhan, Meta head of infrastructure and co-head of engineering
The handoff comes as Meta pours hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and data centers. In its recent third-quarter earnings report, Meta said it expects full-year 2026 capital expenditures of $135 billion to $145 billion.
Key facts
- 01Santosh Janardhan, Meta's head of infrastructure and co-head of engineering, told staff on November 11 he will step down.
- 02Former AWS SVP Dave Brown, who joined Meta in July 2026 as VP of infrastructure, succeeds him.
- 03Janardhan stays through Q1 2027 and moves to an advisory role on Meta Compute.
- 04Meta guides 2026 capital expenditures of $135 billion to $145 billion.
- 05Janardhan joined Facebook in October 2009 and oversaw its data center fleet and custom silicon program.
Brown spent nearly two decades at AWS, most recently as senior vice president overseeing compute and machine-learning services, before joining Meta in July. In the memo, Janardhan wrote that "Dave has spent his career building and operating dependable infrastructure for a wide range of demanding workloads."
“He has the instincts, depth and judgment this moment requires.”— Santosh Janardhan, Meta head of infrastructure and co-head of engineering
Janardhan joined Facebook in October 2009, when the site was adding a million users a day. Over 17 years he scaled the company's data center fleet and network, oversaw its custom silicon program, and steered infrastructure through the shifts from web to mobile to AI. Before Facebook, he led database and storage teams at YouTube, Google and PayPal.
In January 2026, Janardhan took on an additional role as co-lead of Meta Compute alongside Dina Powell McCormick, Meta's president and vice chairman, and Daniel Gross. The initiative was set up to plan Meta's long-term computing capacity.
Framing the timing, Janardhan wrote that "this is the right time for Dave to take the lead in shaping that work" as Meta makes its next set of choices about priorities. He described infrastructure as having grown from an enabling function into a strategic advantage for the company.
Mark Zuckerberg thanked Janardhan in an internal posting. Zuckerberg has also elevated Powell McCormick, who now plays a growing role in setting and communicating Meta's infrastructure strategy.
“You've positioned the team and Meta well for this moment, and you've built a strong team that can carry this work forward”— Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO
Investors have been watching the spending closely. Meta logged negative free cash flow of $2.12 billion in the third quarter, and S&P Global Ratings revised its outlook on Meta's AA- credit rating from stable to negative in late October.
Janardhan's memo, titled "Passing the Baton," closed by thanking the infrastructure staff who designed, built, operated and repaired Meta's systems. "The scale is impressive. The people behind it are what I will remember," he wrote.
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