Steven Horowitz, the engineering director who helped oversee Google’s development of Android, has left the company to take up the position of chief technology officer at Coupons Inc. He was apparently attracted by “the fact that the worsening economy has accelerated business at Coupons, which also operates a Web coupon site for consumers…”

Coupons plans to hire 40 new employees by the end of next month, reports the WSJ. There’s been a bit going around lately about why some disgruntled people leave Google (NSDQ: GOOG) (TechCrunch has a thread up). But in this case, it’s probably more about Android refocusing from developing the operating system to porting it to different devices, a strategy that may have interested Horowitz less.