Mercado Libre built internal AI platform Verdi to abstract data complexity
Sebastian Barrios · Mercado Libre: 18k engineers, 30k deploys a day, & their own fleet of planes | Sebastian Barrios · Jun 8, 2025 · at 16:53
Sebastian Barrios, former Head of Product and Engineering at Mercado Libre, explains how the company scales developer productivity using internal platforms.
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“We developed an internal platform called Verdi that basically abstracts away a lot of the complexities around, okay, where are you gonna get the data? How's it gonna be authorized?”
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“That is the right number. 18,000 and climbing. I just put specify that they don't report all directly to me. We can talk about how the company is structured, but yes, I lead the technology team that basically powers all of what they do.”
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“There's not a lot of tolerance for being in a meeting and getting asked the questions like, well, I need to check with this person to understand the details. Cause you know, I'm not sure what technology we're using, like That, that would not fly.”