Immediately following Google’s acquisition of Slide, it was unclear whether or not founder Max Levchin would join the search giant. Now the matter’s been resolved in a decisive manner, as Google’s confirmed that Levchin will in fact be a vice president of engineering.
Google had 21,805 fulltime employees as of June 30th, and just ten other people are linked to the exact title "Vice President, Engineering" on an official "Google Management" page, so this development appears to put Levchin pretty high up in the organization.
He’ll actually share the title with people like Vic Gundotra, Udi Manber, and Andy Rubin, who are well known for their work in the fields of mobile, search, and Android, respectively.
As for what Levchin, who cofounded PayPal, will focus on, a Google spokesperson told Kim-Mai Cutler that he "will be working on social products with a variety of teams."
Cutler’s also heard from unnamed sources that Levchin will be leading the development of Google’s would-be Facebook rival, Google Me.
The news that Levchin will join Google should help offset the recent departure of games developer advocate Mark Deloura, in any event.