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Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Mac software engineering and the man who played a lead role in the development of Mac OS X, is leaving the company.

Serlet worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT Computer, and he spent four years at the famed Xerox PARC research laboratory in Silicon Valley. “I’ve worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science,” Serlet said in a statement."

He will be replaced by Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of Mac software engineering. For the past two years, he has managed the Mac OS software engineering group, which is on the verge of releasing a new incarnation of the OS known as Lion. "Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless," Serlet said.

Federighi also worked at NeXT, before moving to Apple. But he eventually left the company and worked for a decade at Ariba, where he rose to the chief technology officer post. He came back to Apple in 2009. Apple says he will report directly to Steve Jobs.

Apple didn't say where Serlet planned to work next. ®

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