Mercado Libre: 18k engineers, 30k deploys a day, & their own fleet of planes | Sebastian Barrios
Lenny's Podcast episode, sponsored by Merge and Vanta, in which Lenny Rachitsky talks with Sebastian Barrios, SVP of engineering at Roblox and longtime product and engineering leader at Mercado Libre, about running one of the largest engineering organizations on the planet. Mercado Libre, the most valuable company in Latin America at over 100 billion dollars, fields 18,000 engineers across 18 countries, deploys 30,000 times a day, and delivers over 5 million packages daily with its own trucks and planes - bigger now than eBay and PayPal combined. Barrios explains why he refuses to split engineering from product, arguing a title should not decide ownership, and shares the stories behind the operator: his mother training him like a spy by dropping him in Mexico City to find his way home, building the number-one app in 19 countries at 19, and the phone call from Steve Jobs - after Apple added a new App Store rule overnight - that booted his teenage app. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this summary highlights the operating philosophy and stories; deeper org mechanics are not covered. These are Barrios's own accounts and views, not independently verified.
Executive Summary (TL;DR)
Lenny's Podcast episode, sponsored by Merge and Vanta, in which Lenny Rachitsky talks with Sebastian Barrios, SVP of engineering at Roblox and longtime product and engineering leader at Mercado Libre, about running one of the largest engineering organizations on the planet. Mercado Libre, the most valuable company in Latin America at over 100 billion dollars, fields 18,000 engineers across 18 countries, deploys 30,000 times a day, and delivers over 5 million packages daily with its own trucks and planes - bigger now than eBay and PayPal combined. Barrios explains why he refuses to split engineering from product, arguing a title should not decide ownership, and shares the stories behind the operator: his mother training him like a spy by dropping him in Mexico City to find his way home, building the number-one app in 19 countries at 19, and the phone call from Steve Jobs - after Apple added a new App Store rule overnight - that booted his teenage app. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this summary highlights the operating philosophy and stories; deeper org mechanics are not covered. These are Barrios's own accounts and views, not independently verified.