Yahoo! Tech Chief Out Door

Updated from 4:45 p.m. EDT

Yahoo!'s(YHOO Quote) chief technology officer, Farzad Nazem, is heading for the exits.

The Internet giant said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday that it had entered into a "separation agreement" with Nazem on Wednesday, leading to his departure, effective June 8.

During a high-profile fourth-quarter shake-up at the company, Nazem was appointed the head of one of Yahoo!'s newly formed divisions. Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang will now serve as temporary head of the unit, Yahoo! announced later Wednesday in a press release.

In a blog posting on the company's Web site, Nazem indicated that his move had been in the works. "It was very important to me to drive all the way to my last day here at Yahoo! without distractions of an announcement like this," Nazem wrote. "So we chose to make the announcement and my end date as close as possible."

Nazem's departure comes about a month and a half before Yahoo!'s quarterly earnings call. Yahoo! management has indicated that Project Panama, the widely anticipated ad system that debuted earlier in the year, will begin to have material impact on the company's bottom line by then.

Under the agreement, Nazem will receive a lump sum payment equal to his base salary from June 8 through the end of the year, and certain stock option grants and restricted stock awards will become fully vested.

In return, Nazem has agreed to not engage in certain competitive activities for three years following his departure, as well as agreeing to not solicit any employees or contractors of Yahoo!.

Shares of Yahoo! slumped 20 cents, or 0.7%, in recent after-hours trading to $28.38.