One week after the conclusion of Instructure’s Users’ Conference, CTO Joel Dehlin abruptly resigned from the company for a new job. Joel took the CTO job with Instructure in summer 2013, around the same time as Devlin Daley’s departure (Devlin was co-founder). Joel’s resignation comes as a surprise, especially given his prominent placement as the technology lead for the Canvas LMS. As recently as InstructureCon on June 27th, Joel gave the product update presentation.
The change became apparent by viewing the new Instructure leadership page (nice page design, btw), as I noticed that Joel was not included. I contacted Devin Knighton, Director of Public Relations for Instructure, who confirmed that the resignation was unexpected and was Joel’s decision. I am not sure how significant this resignation is for the company. What we do know is that Joel has not been replaced as CTO, but that Jared Stein (VP of Research and Education), Trey Bean (VP of Product), David Burggraaf (VP of Engineering), and Zach Willy (Chief Architect) will cover the CTO responsibilities in the near term. I would have more details, but Devin is on family vacation, and I did not want to push for him to send me an official email.
We’ll keep you posted if we find out more information (assuming it is newsworthy).
Update: Corrected second paragraph on VP of Product and VP of Engineering per Devin Knighton comment below.
[…] Instructure CTO Joel Dehlin has “abruptly resigned,” reports Phil Hill. […]