Julia Liuson, president of Microsoft’s developer tools business, will retire in June.

CNBC reported on Tuesday that Liuson told employees in an internal memo she would move into an advisory role after stepping down in June. She joined Microsoft in 1992, the same year as Chief Executive Satya Nadella. She currently serves as president of the developer division and has held the role since 2021.

Her departure comes as Microsoft reshapes its developer tools strategy around generative AI. The company is integrating external AI models into its developer tools through partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic, while also developing its own models. The goal is to embed AI as a core element throughout the process third-party developers use to build applications and web services.

Liuson will continue organisational restructuring through her departure. She said in the memo she would push changes to flatten the organisation, strengthen an "AI-first" operating model and reduce repetitive tasks. She plans to carry out structural changes with Jay Parikh (제이 파리크).

The status of the developer organisation inside Microsoft is also changing. Nadella has said he would fold Liuson’s team into the CoreAI Platform and Tools group led by Parikh. Parikh, a former Meta executive who joined in 2024, is currently Liuson’s direct manager.

The developer tools business is directly tied to Microsoft’s AI monetisation strategy. Nadella said in January that the paid user base of code-generation tool GitHub Copilot had reached 4.7 million. That was up 75 percent from a year earlier. The market, however, has seen strong competition from startups promoting generative AI-based coding tools. Cursor, which has grown rapidly with its code-writing assistance service, is reported to have exceeded $2 billion in annualised revenue as of February.

Liuson is a figure who grew with the history of Microsoft’s developer tools. Early in her career she worked as an Access database developer and later took part in developing early versions of Visual Studio. She is also recorded as the first woman at Microsoft to become corporate vice president in the development division.

The developer organisation has recently seen a series of leadership changes. In August last year, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke (토마스 돔케) said he planned to step down. At the time, Parikh announced that GitHub’s key executives would be reorganised into a reporting line to Liuson.