Vindu Goel, one of Silicon Alley's top tech biz reporters, was just poached by the New York Times to shore up their technology coverage. He's been named to the newly created position of deputy technology editor — and, says Larry Ingrassia, "it's a job that Vindu is particularly well suited to do, given his range of experience in overseeing business and tech coverage, and his passion and vision for Web journalism." Goel, who is currently a columnist and blogger for the San Jose Mercury News, will be working with Damon Darlin, David Gallagher and Kevin McKenna.

Goel's a wunderkind of sorts; he earned some of his first bylines as a college intern for the Times and worked at the Wall Street Journal before starting at the Merc and working his way up to columnist.

Times memo on Goel's hire after the jump.

Addendum: This being the world of new media and all, here's Goel's blog entry announcing his departure from the Merc.

(Image via SAJAforum)

Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that Vindu Goel, a business columnist and former business editor at the San Jose Mercury News, will be joining The Times as a deputy technology editor.

In this newly created position, Vindu will work with tech editor Damon Darlin and deputy tech editor David Gallagher, as well as Kevin McKenna, deputy business editor for online news, to expand our coverage of technology, particularly on the Web. It's a job that Vindu is particularly well suited to do, given his range of experience in overseeing business and tech coverage, and his passion and vision for Web journalism.

Vindu currently writes a column that runs in the Merc, in print and online, and a blog on business and technology, covering such topics as the Microsoft-Yahoo merger battle and entrepreneurs' quest to produce fuel from algae.

Vindu was an editor on the business desk of the Merc from 1999 to 2005 and ran the business news operation for two and a half years, focusing on technology, the hometown industry of Silicon Valley. He directed the paper's award-winning coverage of the Hewlett-Packard/Compaq merger fight, the Google IPO, the Microsoft antitrust trial and the boom and bust of Silicon Valley's economy. During his time as a business editor, the Mercury News business section won numerous general-excellence awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Between stints on the business desk, Vindu spent about a year as an editorial writer at the Merc, writing opinion pieces on business, technology, environment and immigration issues.

Prior to joining the Merc, he was a consumer products reporter in the Philadelphia bureau of the Wall Street Journal and a business and state government reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is a 1989 graduate of Harvard University and was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan in 2005-06.

Coming to the Times is a bit of a homecoming for Vindu, whose surname rhymes with oil. He was born and raised in upstate New York, and during the summer of 1988, he interned here on the Science Times and Metro desks, where he wrote about a Bronx slumlord, among other things.

Join us in welcoming Vindu, who will start at The Times sometime in April.

Larry Ingrassia, Damon Darlin & Kevin McKenna