Vic Gundotra announced Thursday his departure in a post on his Google+ page, saying that he was looking forward to a "journey yet to come" and not revealing his reasons for leaving. His responsibilities included handling relationships with outside developers and shepherding in mobile products such as turn-by-turn navigation in Google Maps.

Google+ was launched in 2011 as Google's first foray into the expanding sector of social media, and was meant to compete head-on with leaders Facebook and Twitter.

Gundotra has helped Google build some of the early apps for its Android operating system and has also led the drive to persuade outside programmers to create services suited for Android.

"Today I'm announcing my departure from Google after almost 8 years," wrote Gundotra. "I am excited about what's next. But this isn't the day to talk about that. This is a day to celebrate the past 8 years."

IIT, Madras graduate, Gundotra has also worked with Microsoft for 15 years.

CEO Larry Page praised Gundotra in his own Google+ post, thanking him for "a tremendous almost eight years at Google" and for building Google+ "from nothing."

"I really enjoy using Google+ on a daily basis, especially the auto awesome movies which I really love sharing with my family and friends," said Page.

Google+ will now be led by David Besbris, VP of engineering. Like Gundotra, Besbris has also been a part of the Google+ team since the very beginning.