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Tumblr Has a New CTO: Brian Murphy From the New York Times

Mobile, mobile, mobile.

By Kurt Wagner
Rob Kim / Getty Images

Tumblr has hired Brian Murphy, former VP of engineering at the New York Times, as the company’s new chief technology officer.

Murphy will run Tumblr’s engineering team and tells Re/code that his major focus will be on building and supporting Tumblr’s mobile products. Tumblr claims that roughly 80 percent of its users access the site from a mobile device.

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“It’s my hope that we’ll be able to really double down on [mobile], to sort of focus on performance, especially on an international basis,” Murphy said.

This focus on mobile is nothing new to Murphy. He was tasked with helping to build mobile apps for the Times, too. Murphy also says that he expects there to be “continued, healthy growth” for Tumblr’s engineering and mobile teams, worth noting given the recent layoffs at Tumblr’s parent company, Yahoo.

Murphy will start in his new role in late March. He’ll report to Tumblr President and COO Jeff D’Onofrio.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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