Thomas Dohmke

Thomas Dohmke
Born	Template:Birth year and age
Birthplace	East Berlin, East Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Software developer, business executive, entrepreneur
Known for	CEO of GitHub (2021–2025), co-founder of HockeyApp, founder of Entire

Thomas Dohmke (born 1978) is a German software developer, business executive, and entrepreneur who served as the chief executive officer (CEO) of GitHub, the world's largest platform for software development and version control, from November 2021 until his resignation in August 2025. Born in East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dohmke built a career at the intersection of developer tools and enterprise software, co-founding HockeyApp—a mobile application testing and distribution platform that was acquired by Microsoft in 2014. After rising through leadership roles at Microsoft and GitHub, he succeeded Nat Friedman as GitHub's CEO, overseeing the platform's growth to more than 100 million developers and the rapid expansion of GitHub Copilot, an artificial intelligence-powered coding assistant. Following his departure from GitHub, Dohmke founded Entire, a startup focused on developer tools for managing AI-generated code, which launched in February 2026 with a record $60 million seed funding round at a $300 million valuation.

Early Life

Thomas Dohmke was born in 1978 in East Berlin, the capital of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic). He grew up during the final decade of the Cold War, in a divided city that would become a symbol of reunification when the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Dohmke was approximately eleven years old at the time of German reunification, an event that reshaped the political and economic landscape of his homeland and opened new opportunities for citizens of the former East Germany, including access to Western technology, education, and global markets.

Details about Dohmke's family background and childhood in East Berlin prior to reunification are not extensively documented in public sources. However, his later career trajectory—rooted in software development and technology entrepreneurship—suggests an early engagement with computing during a period when personal computers and software development were becoming increasingly accessible in reunified Germany during the 1990s.

Education

Dohmke pursued higher education in both Germany and the United Kingdom. He attended the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), one of Germany's leading research universities with a strong reputation in engineering and computer science. He also studied at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, broadening his academic experience internationally. The combination of studies at these two institutions provided Dohmke with a foundation in computer science and software engineering that would underpin his subsequent career as a developer and technology executive. The specific degrees he obtained and the precise years of his enrollment have not been extensively documented in available public sources.

Career

HockeyApp and Early Entrepreneurial Work

Before joining Microsoft, Dohmke co-founded HockeyApp, a platform designed to assist mobile application developers with beta distribution, crash reporting, and user feedback collection. HockeyApp became a recognized tool among mobile developers, providing services that addressed practical challenges in the software development lifecycle—particularly for applications targeting iOS, Android, and Windows Phone platforms.

In 2014, Microsoft acquired HockeyApp as part of its broader strategy to strengthen its developer tools and services ecosystem. The acquisition brought Dohmke and the HockeyApp team into Microsoft's organizational structure, positioning them within the company's growing developer division. HockeyApp's functionality was subsequently integrated into Microsoft's Visual Studio App Center, which offered a unified suite of mobile development services including continuous integration, testing, and analytics.

Microsoft and Rise at GitHub

Following the HockeyApp acquisition, Dohmke continued to work within Microsoft's developer tools division. His role expanded as Microsoft deepened its commitment to open-source software and developer-facing platforms. Microsoft's $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub in 2018 represented a significant moment for the company's developer strategy, and Dohmke became increasingly involved in GitHub's operations and leadership.

Dohmke served in senior roles at GitHub, gaining experience across the platform's product development and strategic direction. When Nat Friedman, who had served as GitHub's CEO since the Microsoft acquisition, announced his resignation in November 2021, Dohmke was appointed as his successor. The transition reflected continuity in GitHub's leadership within the Microsoft ecosystem, as Dohmke had been closely involved with the platform's strategic initiatives.

CEO of GitHub (2021–2025)

As CEO of GitHub, Dohmke oversaw a period of significant growth and transformation for the platform. GitHub, which had already established itself as the dominant platform for hosting and collaborating on software code, expanded its user base substantially during his tenure. The platform grew to serve more than 100 million developers worldwide, solidifying its position as a central hub in the global software development ecosystem.

One of the most consequential developments during Dohmke's tenure was the expansion and scaling of GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered code completion and generation tool developed in partnership with OpenAI. Copilot, which uses large language models to suggest code in real time within development environments, represented one of the earliest and most prominent commercial applications of generative AI in software engineering. Under Dohmke's leadership, GitHub Copilot grew from an experimental tool into a widely adopted product used by individual developers and enterprise organizations alike.

Dohmke's leadership at GitHub coincided with a broader industry shift toward AI-assisted software development. The introduction and popularization of tools like Copilot raised questions about the future of software engineering, the role of human developers, code quality and security, intellectual property considerations, and the economic implications of automated code generation. As CEO, Dohmke became a prominent voice in discussions about how AI would reshape the developer experience and the software industry more broadly.

The competitive landscape for AI-powered coding tools intensified during Dohmke's time as CEO, with new entrants and established technology companies launching rival products. Companies including Google, Amazon, and various startups introduced their own AI coding assistants, increasing competitive pressure on GitHub Copilot's market position.

Resignation from GitHub

On August 11, 2025, it was announced that Dohmke would step down as CEO of GitHub. His departure came as competition in the AI coding tools space was intensifying and as Microsoft was reorganizing aspects of its AI and developer platform strategy, including transitions related to its CoreAI team.

Reuters reported that Dohmke planned to step down to pursue a new startup venture. Axios similarly reported on Dohmke's plans to leave GitHub and start a new company. The Economic Times of India also covered his departure, noting the transition in GitHub's leadership.

Dohmke's resignation attracted considerable media attention, given GitHub's central role in the global software development ecosystem and the strategic importance of AI coding tools to Microsoft's broader business strategy. His departure was widely covered by technology and business media outlets, reflecting both his prominence in the industry and the significance of the competitive dynamics in AI-assisted development.

Post-GitHub: Founding of Entire

Following his departure from GitHub, Dohmke quickly signaled his intention to remain active in the technology industry. By November 2025, Business Insider reported that Dohmke had taken on a new role focused on making AI-generated code more secure, foreshadowing the formal launch of his next venture.

On February 10, 2026, Dohmke officially launched Entire, a startup building a developer platform designed for what has been described as "the age of agentic coding"—a paradigm in which AI agents autonomously generate significant portions of software code. The company's platform is designed to help developers manage, review, and govern the code produced by AI agents, addressing what Dohmke and others have identified as a "review bottleneck"—the challenge of ensuring quality, security, and coherence when a growing proportion of code is machine-generated rather than written by humans.

Entire launched with a $60 million seed funding round, which was described by TechCrunch as a record-setting amount for a seed-stage investment in the developer tools space. The round valued the company at $300 million. Bloomberg reported on the fundraise, noting that Entire aimed to better merge AI-generated and human-written code. GeekWire highlighted Dohmke's experience scaling GitHub Copilot as relevant context for his new venture, suggesting that his firsthand experience with AI-assisted coding informed the product direction of Entire.

The launch of Entire was covered by numerous technology and business publications, including Redmond Channel Partner, which described the startup as tackling "AI code governance." The Tech Buzz also reported on the historic nature of the seed round and the company's focus on AI code management.

The founding of Entire positioned Dohmke at the center of an emerging segment of the developer tools market concerned with the governance, security, and quality assurance of AI-generated code. As AI coding agents became capable of producing larger volumes of code with increasing autonomy, the need for tools to manage and review that output became a growing focus for both developers and enterprise organizations. Dohmke's new venture directly addressed this challenge, building on his experience at GitHub overseeing the deployment and scaling of one of the first major AI coding assistants.

Personal Life

Thomas Dohmke's personal life is not extensively documented in public sources. He was born and raised in East Berlin and later pursued education in both Berlin and Glasgow, indicating periods of residence in Germany and the United Kingdom. His career has been based primarily in the technology industry, with significant periods at Microsoft and GitHub. Following his departure from GitHub, he founded Entire. Further details about his personal life, family, or residence have not been widely reported in available public sources.

Legacy

Thomas Dohmke's career spans several significant developments in the software industry. As co-founder of HockeyApp, he contributed to the professionalization of mobile application development and testing during a period of rapid growth in mobile computing. The acquisition of HockeyApp by Microsoft in 2014 was part of a broader trend of major technology companies acquiring developer tools startups to strengthen their platforms and ecosystems.

As CEO of GitHub from 2021 to 2025, Dohmke led one of the most consequential platforms in modern software development during a period of transformative change driven by artificial intelligence. The expansion of GitHub Copilot under his leadership represented one of the earliest large-scale deployments of generative AI in a professional software engineering context. The growth of GitHub's user base to over 100 million developers during his tenure reflected the platform's continued centrality to the global software development community.

Dohmke's post-GitHub career, particularly the founding of Entire with its focus on AI code governance and management, reflects an emerging consensus in the technology industry that the proliferation of AI-generated code creates new challenges around quality, security, and oversight. His trajectory from leading a platform that popularized AI-assisted coding to founding a company focused on managing AI-generated code output illustrates the rapid evolution of the developer tools landscape in the mid-2020s.

The record-setting $60 million seed round that Entire secured upon launch demonstrated investor confidence in both Dohmke's track record and the market opportunity for AI code management tools. The company's $300 million valuation at the seed stage was one of the largest in the developer tools sector, indicating high expectations for the company's potential impact on how software is built and maintained in an era of increasing AI automation.