Sprint's flamboyant COO of technology, Günther Ottendorfer, has left the company, the operator announced on Friday evening.

Ottendorfer -- who typically sported bright yellow sneakers patterned after the Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) corporate colors -- joined the carrier from Telekom Austria Group in August 2015. (See Sprint Swaps in a New CFO, COO & CTO.)

Ottendorfer "is leaving Sprint to join his family in Austria and pursue other opportunities," a company spokeswoman told Light Reading Friday evening via email. "During his more than two years at Sprint, Günther helped drive new technology innovations and steadily improve the performance of our network." (See Sprint COO on Massive MIMO Deployment: 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' and Sprint's Tech COO on Gigabit LTE.)

Ottendorfer is jumping ship soon after talks around a long-awaited merger between Sprint and T-Mobile fell apart. John Saw will continue to work on network developments as Sprint's CTO. (See What Next for DT After T-Mobile, Sprint Bust-Up? and SoftBank to Increase Sprint Stake as Vision Fund Boosts Earnings.)

Here's Ottendorfer in a September interview, talking about Sprint's massive MIMO trial in Seattle.

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— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading