Google rearranges Glass engineers under Fadell’s new leadership

The Google Glass team is getting a bit of a shake up under Fadell’s new leadership. Long-time Glass engineers, particularly THREE notable ones, are being reassigned to different Google products and fresh blood is being pumped into the project.

There has been a lot of erroneous talk in the media about Glass’ demise, which I’ve discussed here, but it appears that Google is strongly committed to the project, especially toward the business sector.9to5Google reported yesterday that Google has already been seeding Glass at Work partners with a new prototype device.

Google CFO Patrick Pichette, during Google’s latest Q4 earnings call, described the Glass project as “promising” and being given a “reset” with a new chance to accomplish necessary hurdles in order for the device to avoid being canceled. Pichette gave no word on what those hurdles might be.

Further reading: Google Glass promoted from Google[x], Explorer Program shutting down

THREE very popular Glass engineers that have been with the device since its early days that are getting reassigned are Stephen Lau, Salil Pandit, and P.Y. Lalligand. Lau and Pandit are moving over to YouTube, while Lalligand is heading off to Android.

In a Google+ post, Lau, who was Glass’ Technical Lead of its software team and engineer, had the following comment about his new assignment:

It’s been a wild and crazy ride, but after 3 years and 8 months, I’m leaving Glass to START a new episode of my career over at YouTube.  (get it? episode? see what I did there?)

I’m having mixed feelings… I’m definitely feeling sad to leave Glass, but excited (and nervous and scared!) to join YouTube and tackle my NEXT project.

Ivy Ross, who runs Glass and reports directly to Fadell, will be staying behind. Google has not announced who will be stepping into their new roles on the Glass team.

So when might we see the second iteration of Glass? Not until its perfect, according to Fadell.

Source: 9to5Google