Mercado Livre por dentro: 30 mil deploys por dia sem colapsar
Elevating Platform Engineering to Strategic Status
Unlike many companies that treat platform engineering as a support function, Mercado Livre, Nubank, iFood, and Itaú recognize it as a core strategic element. This shift is driven by demonstrating the tangible business impact of platform investments, such as faster time-to-market for new integrations and competitive advantages. The focus must be on business outcomes, not just technical metrics, to gain executive buy-in and secure long-term sponsorship for platform initiatives.
Juliano Martins: The Need for Product Vision in Platform Teams
Mercado Livre's platform team initially lacked a strong product vision, leading to a gap in understanding user needs. The introduction of Technical Account Managers (TAMs) with a blend of technical and product skills has helped bridge this gap. These TAMs engage with business teams to understand their pain points and translate them into platform requirements, preventing the proliferation of 'sub-platforms' and ensuring Fury remains the central, evolving solution. This highlights the critical role of product management within platform engineering.
Governing 35,000 Microservices: Power with Responsibility
Mercado Livre manages approximately 35,000 microservices by empowering individuals with significant freedom to create resources, but coupling this with clear responsibility. While developers can create infrastructure like databases without explicit approval, the platform (Fury) has safeguards against critical errors, such as preventing the deletion of active production services. This cultural emphasis on responsibility, reinforced by platform guardrails and continuous training on best practices, prevents chaos and ensures stability despite the massive scale.
Fury as a Competitive Differentiator for Mercado Livre
Mercado Livre's platform, Fury, is considered indispensable for its current scale and success, enabling rapid growth from 3,000 to over 20,000 IT professionals. It allows new features to be deployed in minutes and facilitates seamless transitions for engineers between teams. Unlike tools that merely generate infrastructure, Fury provides ongoing management, updates, and cost oversight, making it far more than a simple infrastructure provisioning tool. This comprehensive platform is a critical factor in Mercado Livre's ability to compete and innovate effectively.
Platform Team Structure
Mercado Livre's platform teams operate with significant autonomy, with Product Managers often emerging from within engineering roles (PL/TL) rather than being dedicated hires. While some dedicated PMs exist, the company prioritizes team freedom in choosing methodologies and product direction, believing teams best understand their own products.
AI Adoption & Metrics
Mercado Livre is seeing significant adoption of AI tools like GitHub Copilot, with around 12,000 developers using it. However, the focus is shifting from vanity metrics like lines of code generated by AI to tangible business KPIs, such as tripling productivity. Success is measured by achieving these goals or understanding why they weren't met.
AI for Junior Developers
Juliano Martins believes junior and mid-level developers are not yet fully prepared to rely on AI tools like Cursor for production code due to the risk of generating poor-quality code. While AI is valuable for learning and understanding codebases, its use in professional output requires caution and is best suited for more senior developers.
The AI Bubble Phenomenon
The current AI boom resembles past tech bubbles (dot-com, crypto, NFTs), with large corporations like Microsoft and Google investing heavily in AI startups. Martins predicts this bubble may burst within two years, leading to consolidation where only a few dominant players remain, similar to the aftermath of the dot-com era.
