When you come across someone talented who has proven their abilities through dedication and experience, it would be a waste not to take the opportunity to interview them. Here, before our newest addition to N5, the new Technical Co-Founder, Lucas Tettamanti, we decided to listen carefully…
Background
Your career includes experience at companies of enormous scale and impact, such as Mercado Libre and Rappi. If you had to summarize it, what conviction or lesson would you say marked your evolution and that you carry with you today as a technology leader?
If I look back, the common thread throughout my career has always been the same: building systems and teams capable of scaling.
I had the opportunity to work at companies that grew very quickly, such as Mercado Libre, OLX, Despegar, and Rappi, and that forces you to learn two things very quickly: that technology is a huge multiplier of human talent, and that systems that are not well designed from the beginning eventually become a limitation for the business.
My conviction as a technology leader has always been that technology does not exist to be interesting; it exists to solve real business problems. To achieve that, you need to combine three things: good architecture, strong teams, and a culture that values execution.
Purpose at N5
Beyond the technical challenge you recently took on at N5, what purpose motivates you at this moment, and what transformation would you like to drive through technology in the financial industry?
At this stage at N5, what motivates me is a very concrete idea: using artificial intelligence to change the way banks operate internally.
For decades, financial software focused on digitizing interfaces, but internal processes remained complex, expensive, and slow. Today, artificial intelligence makes it possible to address precisely that operational core.
The purpose is clear: to build platforms where automation, intelligent agents, and data reduce operational costs, lower risks, and enable financial products to be launched much faster.
If we do this well, we will not only improve banks’ efficiency; we will also improve the final experience of millions of people who interact with them every day.
Personal and family dimension
Leadership roles in technology often require intensity and constant focus. How does that demand interact with your personal and family life? What place does balance—or imbalance—have in the way you live your profession?
Technology is an intense profession by nature. When you are building new things, especially in high-growth environments, work and intellectual curiosity often blend together.
In my case, I try to see it more as integration than as perfect balance. I am passionate about what I do, and that inevitably occupies an important part of my life.
But over the years I have also learned that the truly important decisions are not made from a state of permanent exhaustion. Family, personal time, and mental distance are also part of building things well.
In the end, leading technology is not only about writing code or designing systems; it is also about having the mental clarity to make good decisions.
Vision of the future of work and society
With the rapid progress of artificial intelligence and automation, how do you imagine the future of work in Latin America? What responsibility should technology companies assume so that digital transformation also becomes a positive social transformation?
Artificial intelligence will change work much faster than we usually admit, especially if we include robotics in the equation.
Many tasks that today are manual or repetitive will disappear or be deeply transformed. At the same time, new forms of work will emerge where the ability to think, design systems, and make decisions will be far more valuable than executing mechanical tasks.
In Latin America, this represents both a challenge and a great opportunity. We have very strong technical talent and an enormous capacity to adapt, but we need to invest much more in technological education and, above all, in critical thinking.
Technology companies have an important responsibility in this process. It is not enough to use technology to gain efficiency; we also need to contribute to building new capabilities within society.
But at the end of the day, I also believe the responsibility is deeply individual. The way we learn—and how we educate our children—will need to change. For a long time, we delegated too much of our children’s academic development exclusively to educational institutions. In a world that changes so quickly, curiosity, the ability to learn, and critical thinking begin first at home.
Challenge in the ecosystem
The financial industry has trust and security as its main assets. How can innovation be led in an environment where mistakes are not an option and risk must always remain under control?
Innovation in fintech and banking has a particular characteristic: you cannot simply break things to see what happens, as in other technology industries.
Trust, regulatory compliance, and security are the core of the financial system.
Therefore, true innovation in this sector is not about moving faster by ignoring risk, but about designing architectures and processes that allow innovation while maintaining control.
This implies robust platforms, traceability, observability, and well-structured risk models. When all of that is properly built, innovation stops being dangerous and becomes systematic.
Extra
One final question: could you leave a piece of advice for new generations to achieve a well-rounded life success?
My advice would be quite simple: learn to build things that work in the real world.
Tools change, industries change, contexts change. What does not change is the ability to understand a complex problem and transform it into a solution that truly works.
That requires curiosity, discipline, and perseverance, along with a certain tolerance for making many mistakes. Most important things happen after several failed attempts.
But there is something else that usually accelerates learning a lot: surrounding yourself with people who are better than you. That is the fastest way to grow.
It forces you to leave your comfort zone and get used to a very healthy kind of discomfort: realizing that you never know enough. Once you learn to live with that feeling, it becomes one of the most powerful tools for continuing to evolve.
Thank you very much, Lucas Tettamanti, for this interview that opens so many questions at the same time that the solutions from your field help answer them.
