SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - Indonesian ride-hailing firm Gojek has promoted Severan Rault to chief technology officer (CTO), months after he joined the start-up earlier this year as head of engineering for its marketplace platform.

Mr Rault will replace the firm's previous CTO, Ajey Gore, who stepped down on June 12 to take a "personal break".

Based in Singapore, Mr Rault will report to Gojek's co-chief executive Kevin Aluwi, and oversee all of the technology behind Gojek's ecosystems as well as manage the engineering teams in South-east Asia and India.

Prior to joining Gojek, Mr Rault was working on his own start-up, virtual reality firm Betawave. Before that, he was a director of software development at Amazon, where he led the team that founded the drone delivery service Amazon Prime Air.

Mr Rault has held leadership positions at Microsoft, including as the principal architect of search engine Bing and the principal development manager for Microsoft OneApp, which allows older phones to run popular mobile apps.

Commenting on his Gojek appointment, Mr Rault said: "The company is entering a critical phase as it moves from startup to maturation, and it's special to be a part of that… The engineering challenges associated with that are fascinating, ranging from the incredible scaling issues that call for the most cutting-edge cloud solutions, to the deep application of artificial intelligence technologies."

Co-chief executive Mr Aluwi added: "Severan is a technology leader who cares deeply about delivering value to users all across our ecosystem and we are very excited for him to continue on his long track record of excellence here at Gojek."