Jared Palmer, who joined Xbox as VP of engineering in February, has departed the company after only three months. Palmer announced his move to AI company Cognition on X, stating "I've joined Cognition to lead engineering." He expressed gratitude towards Asha Sharma, the Xbox division leader who also recently joined from Microsoft's CoreAI team, and the Xbox team.
Palmer was among several former colleagues from Microsoft's CoreAI team who transitioned to Xbox under Sharma's leadership in May. At the time of his hire, Sharma indicated that Palmer would focus on developer tools, engineering, product, and infrastructure, emphasizing his career spent building tools to "remove friction and increase productivity" and to "support creators."
Palmer's tenure at Microsoft has been relatively short overall, having joined the CoreAI team in October of the previous year before moving to Xbox seven months later. The specific reasons for his departure from Xbox after such a brief period are not publicly detailed, though the notes suggest the decision may be more influenced by his new opportunity than any internal issues at Microsoft.
His exit occurs during a period of significant change for Xbox. Under Asha Sharma's restructuring plan, the company has implemented layoffs affecting 1,600 employees across its studios, with an additional 1,600 planned for fiscal year 2027. Concurrently, Microsoft is divesting from four owned studios and is proposing the closure of another. The impact of these shifts and personnel changes on the future of the Xbox platform, particularly concerning upcoming hardware like the next-generation console Project Helix, remains uncertain, as this period typically involves concentrated platform development work.