How Mercado Libre built Latin America's most valuable company: 18k engineers, 30k deploys a day, and their own fleet of planes | Sebastian Barrios

In this episode, Sebastian Barrios, Senior VP of Engineering at Roblox, shares his remarkable journey in the tech industry, from creating his first app that gained attention from Steve Jobs to overseeing a massive engineering team at Mercado Libre. At a young age of 19, Sebastian developed an app that became the number one app in 19 countries, leading him to build a successful app development company.

Sebastian discusses his philosophy of integrating engineering and product development, emphasizing a culture of independence and innovation within teams. He highlights that Mercado Libre operates with a minimal distinction between engineers and product managers, enabling a faster development process. This unique approach allows for improved decision-making and responsiveness to market needs.

Throughout the conversation, Sebastian reflects on his childhood and unconventional upbringing, where his mother trained him in independence and problem-solving, contributing to his success today. He shares insights into fostering a company culture that empowers teams to take risks and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.

Finally, Sebastian talks about the dynamics at Mercado Libre, which has been incredibly successful in Latin America, and how utilizing strong engineering capabilities fuels this growth. He also touches on the importance of user experience over immediate revenue generation, insisting that a great product will lead to future profits.

This episode offers an inspiring look into how curiosity, independence, and a solid company culture can lead to extraordinary achievements in the tech world.