Pinterest announced that it has hired two top level executives, who previously worked at Apple, to lead its engineering and design departments.
Pinterest, the popular social pin-boarding service, is finally filling up the top positions of its engineering and design departments after about six months of hunting. The social networking service hired two former Apple veterans as the heads of product design and engineering departments. Former Apple veteran Michael Lopp, who previously worked at Palantir as the director of engineering, will lead the engineering department and Bob Baxley, the former design chief of Apple's Online Store, will take up the role of head of product design and research at Pinterest.
Both new hires have crossed paths during their more than eight years of tenure at Apple and also worked on several projects together, including Apple's Online Store. Loop separately worked with the engineering team behind the Mac OS X. Loop carried a heavy resume, with time spent in several high profile tech companies such as Netscape, Symantec and Borland. Loop's appointment at Pinterest concludes the company's six-month long search for the next engineering head following Jon Jenkin's departure last December.
"As we build a visual discovery engine, we're thrilled to announce the addition of two industry leaders to the growing Pinterest team. As Head of Engineering, Michael Lopp will lead the technical team behind Pinterest focused on product development and scaling an infrastructure with 30B+ Pins," the company said in an official statement, Venture Beat reports. "Bob Baxley will oversee the product design and research teams charged with creating the interface and experience that helps tens of millions of Pinners save and discover the things they love."
As for Baxley's role at Pinterest, it is widely seen as a crucial one for the company as it is trying to generate revenue through advertisements. Baxley, who is also an author, worked at Yahoo Search and as the lead UI designer at ClarisWorks, TechCrunch reports. Baxley will report to Head of Product Tim Kendall while Loop will directly report to CEO Ben Silbermann.
