Hugo Barra has found a new job after announcing his departure from Xiaomi earlier this week.
The Brazilian computer scientist is now joining Facebook to lead the social network's virtual reality efforts, including the Oculus team. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news late Wednesday, writing in a post that he has known Barra for a "long time, starting when he helped develop the Android operating system, to the last few years he's worked at Xiaomi in Beijing bringing innovative devices to millions of people."
At Google, Barra last served as vice president of product management for Android, but left in 2013 to join Chinese mobile firm Xiaomi. Since then, he's been living in Beijing, but will now return to Silicon Valley for his role at Facebook as VP of VR.
"Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform," Zuckerberg wrote. "They'll enable us to experience completely new things and be more creative than ever before. Hugo is going to help build that future, and I'm looking forward to having him on our team."
In a Facebook post on Monday announcing his departure from Xiaomi, Barra said that living in China over the past several years has been rough.
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"The last few years of living in such a singular environment have taken a huge toll on my life and started affecting my health," he wrote. "My friends, what I consider to be my home, and my life are back in Silicon Valley, which is also much closer to my family. Seeing how much I've left behind these past few years, it is clear to me that the time has come to return."
In a post late Wednesday, Barra said his new role at Facebook will start in a couple of months.
"Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun always says that the highest calling of an engineer is to make technology breakthroughs quickly and readily available to the widest possible spectrum of humanity," he wrote. "That will be my mission at Facebook."