Barra, sources said, is leaving for a job at Xiaomi, a fast-growing Chinese phone maker. Xiaomi, which builds Android phones for the Chinese market, prides itself not only on its high-end hardware, but also on the software it adds on top of Google’s operating system.
After joining Google in March of 2008, Barra rose through the company’s ranks in the ensuing years, going from group product manager to vice president of Android product management. Barra joined Google from speech technology firm Nuance.