Google LLC has poached another key executive from its rival Oracle Corp. as it continues to rebuild its cloud management team under the leadership of its new Chief Executive Thomas Kurian.

Amit Zavery (pictured) today was hired to head up Google’s Apigee team in his new role as a Google Cloud vice president of engineering. Apigee is Google’s application programming interface management platform that’s used by enterprises to design, secure, deploy, monitor and scale APIs.

Zavery becomes the highest-ranking Oracle executive to reunite with Kurian, who has led Google Cloud since January. Kurian took over that role from his predecessor Diane Greene, shortly after leaving Oracle following a rumored clash with Oracle founder and Chairman Larry Ellison.

Zavery apparently quit Oracle last week before starting work at Google on Monday, Reuters reported. He had served at Oracle for almost 24 years, beginning life there as a software engineer before working his way up to become one of the company’s most important execs in charge of its application development tools for cloud customers. Oracle’s app development tool portfolio reportedly will generate $2.1 billion in revenue for the company this year.

Zavery spoke in depth about his role at Oracle during a 2017 interview with SiliconANGLE that focused on the company’s approach to application developers.

Google’s Apigee platform is similar to those tools, and Zavery will be tasked with growing its offerings, Reuters said. He’ll work alongside former Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor, who has been a Google vice president since his company was bought out in 2016.

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE that Zavery’s switch to Google isn’t surprising given his relationship with Kurian.

“Kurian is rebuilding his management team at Google, and all executives in transition look for talent that has helped them in the past,” Mueller said. “This is a loss for Oracle, as Zavery had been building his responsibilities across the vast Oracle product portfolio.”

Zavery’s hire comes after Kurian said last month that he was hoping to grow Google’s cloud business by tempting big companies in select industries with a wider variety of specialized services.

Photo: SiliconANGLE