The Opportunity

Mercado Libre (NASDAQ: MELI), Latin America’s leading e-commerce and fintech powerhouse, acquired Redelcom, a payments company in Chile, to strengthen its financial services footprint.

Redelcom’s engineering team faced a growing backlog of priorities both before and after the acquisition. Expansion was essential. They needed to rapidly build a 10-person team across backend and data analytics—experienced professionals from across Latin America who could seamlessly integrate with their Chile-based core.

But their traditional recruiting approach wasn’t working:

• Job boards produced a flood of unqualified candidates.

• Engineers were forced into 1–3 technical calls per applicant just to confirm basics.

• Spam from agencies consumed HR’s bandwidth.

At stake was more than time, it was Redelcom’s ability to deliver on MELI’s ambitious integration roadmap.

The Solution

We stepped in to rethink the approach from the ground up.

Old way → New way:

• Job boards & noise → Curated pipeline: Delivered 3–5 vetted candidates per position.

• Wasted interviews → Structured vetting: Engineers saved hours by meeting only qualified, pre-screened candidates.

• Unclear retention path → Compensation guide & cultural fit: Established benchmarks to ensure satisfaction and team stability.

How we worked:

• Partnered with leadership and HR to define not only technical requirements, but also the cultural traits essential to MELI’s DNA.

• Designed a vetting process tailored to MELI’s technical standards.

• Operated side by side with HR, gathering feedback after each interview to refine the selection process.

The result was not just filling roles—it was building a team that could thrive in a fast paced, high performing environment.

The Impact

• Team built: 13 hires across backend, QA, and data roles (surpassing the initial goal of 10).

• Retention: 0 attrition for more than 18 months.

• Efficiency: Engineering leadership reclaimed dozens of hours per hire, dedicating focus to high-priority product development.

• Delivery: Redelcom and MELI achieved quarterly objectives consistently, accelerating post-acquisition execution.

The Outcome

The new team provided MELI with a reliable foundation for Redelcom’s integration and growth. Stability and cultural alignment meant no disruption—only acceleration. Today, MELI continues to benefit from the team’s contributions to its financial products, and we remain proud of having built not just a team, but a lasting capability.