Facebook made some changes to the leadership of its virtual reality unit official Thursday, announcing that former Oculus head Hugo Barra is transitioning into a role focused in interacting with outside partners. His job will be filled by Eric Tseng, who had been director of AR/VR product management at the company.
“He is the right person to step into this role because of his experience leading product teams at Facebook, and leading the Android product team at Google,” a Facebook spokesperson said about Tseng, adding: “Nothing changes with the Oculus brand or our product portfolio with these changes.”
Barra announced the news on Twitter Thursday:
The longtime tech executive joined Facebook from Xiaomi in January of 2017. Before that, he had been working as a senior executive at Google. Barra’s close relationship with Xiaomi led to Facebook partnering with the Chinese company on the manufacturing of its Oculus Go headset.
Along with these changes, Facebook is also giving longtime Oculus executive Jason Rubin a new role that includes gaming beyond VR. Rubin also announced the job change on Twitter:
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This is just the latest in a number of reorganizations for Facebook’s VR team. When Facebook first acquired Oculus, it let the VR pioneer operate as a separate unit under its corporate umbrella. Later, it brought Oculus into the fold, and eventually changed the name of the group to Facebook AR/VR, effectively turning Oculus into the brand for its consumer VR headsets.