From November 2021 until the end of 2025, Thomas Dohmke, a German-born technologist and entrepreneur, was the Chief Executive Officer of GitHub Inc. His time as CEO of GitHub, the world’s largest code-hosting service and a Microsoft-owned platform, was a time of great change, with major advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and global developer engagement. Dohmke’s time at GitHub solidified the platform’s place as a cornerstone of modern software engineering. He had a career in software development and was passionate about giving developers more power.
Starting out and getting to GitHub
Dohmke’s journey in technology began in Germany, where he became interested in software development as a child. He has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Glasgow in the UK, which shows how good he is at solving problems and thinking analytically. Dohmke co-founded HockeyApp, a platform for mobile app analytics and crash reporting, before joining GitHub. Microsoft bought HockeyApp in 2014, which brought Dohmke into the company’s ecosystem. At first, he worked on tools for mobile developers.
In 2018, he got more involved with GitHub when he worked with then-CEO Nat Friedman to help Microsoft buy the platform for $7.5 billion. Dohmke’s work as GitHub’s Chief Product Officer set the stage for his promotion to CEO in November 2021, when he took over for Friedman.
The AI Revolution at GitHub: Leadership
Dohmke turned GitHub from a place to host code into a global center for AI-powered software development. GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant that was created in partnership with Microsoft and OpenAI, grew quickly during his time in charge. Copilot started out as an idea during the 2020 pandemic and quickly became a huge success, bringing in more than 40% of GitHub’s revenue growth and reaching a $2 billion annual revenue run rate by 2024. Copilot changed the way people code by automating simple tasks, which let developers focus on solving more complex problems. It now has over 20 million users.
Dohmke had bigger plans than just Copilot. He was in charge of bringing in new tools like Copilot Workspace and GitHub Models, which made AI even more a part of the development process. Under his leadership, GitHub’s user base grew to over 150 million developers and more than one billion repositories and forks. In just one year, the number of AI projects doubled. Dohmke also made global accessibility a top priority. He got GitHub certified by the U.S. Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) for use by the federal government and grew GitHub’s presence in places like the European Union and Australia.
Dohmke was a strong supporter of AI as a tool for collaboration rather than a replacement for developers. He stressed the importance of learning new skills and adapting to new roles, like system design and prompt engineering. In a blog post from 2024 called “Developers, Reinvented,” he told software engineers to embrace AI or risk losing their jobs. He predicted that 90% of code could be written by AI in two to five years. His forward-thinking approach made GitHub a leader in the field of AI-driven software development.
Accomplishments and Effects
Dohmke had a lot of measurable successes during his time in office. GitHub’s income went from about $400 million to $2 billion while he was in charge. That’s a fivefold increase in five years. There were a lot of open-source contributions to the platform. In 2024 alone, developers contributed to over 500 million projects. GitHub Actions, the platform’s continuous integration tool, grew into a global leader, powering three billion minutes of work each month, a 64% increase from the previous year.
Dohmke pushed for a remote-first culture at GitHub, which helped the company hire people from all over the world and made the platform easier to use. His focus on developer happiness, which came from his own experience as a coder, led to new ideas that made work less mentally tiring and more enjoyable, according to developers who used Copilot.
Leaving and Future Plans
Dohmke said on August 11, 2025, that he would leave GitHub by the end of the year to start his own business. He said his “startup roots” were a big reason for his decision. He wrote in a blog post that he was proud of GitHub’s growth and its move to Microsoft’s CoreAI team, a new engineering group led by Jay Parikh, a former Meta executive. Microsoft chose not to name a direct successor, which means that GitHub will now be fully integrated into its CoreAI division and will no longer be an independent company.
Dohmke’s leaving GitHub ends a big chapter, but his legacy as a pioneer of AI-powered development lives on. He hinted at future projects that might be able to compete with GitHub, which made people want to know what he would do next. Dohmke is still committed to making sure the transition goes smoothly, and he will stay on until the end of 2025.
A Legacy That Will Last
Thomas Dohmke’s time as CEO of GitHub changed the way software is made by accepting AI as a game-changing technology. His idea of a world with one billion developers, all of whom are empowered by AI tools, still inspires the tech community around the world. Dohmke is leaving behind a successful platform that has changed the way developers work together, come up with new ideas, and build the future of software as he starts his next business venture.
