Twitter chief engineer Chris Fry has stepped down to an advisory role at the microblogging service as the company revamps the site in a bid to broaden its popularity beyond its 255 million users.

At the time of Twitter’s initial public offering last October, Mr Fry was the company’s second highest-paid executive, with a package worth $10.3 million, mostly in stock awards and options, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

His departure comes after Michael Sippey, vice-president of consumer product, left in January, also transferring to an advisory role.

Chief executive Dick Costolo is facing a challenge to make Twitter's maze of hashtags and @signs easier to understand for a wider population as investors worry about user growth.

Shares have almost halved this year – falling further than many other high-growth tech stocks that have sold off - as shareholders lose faith that Twitter can ever match Facebook’s almost 1.3 billion users. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014