Mercado Libre Announces New IT Center in Medellin; 500 Tech Jobs Opening

Argentina-based electronic-commerce giant Mercado Libre announced March 3 that it’s opening a new information technology (IT) center in Medellin — and expects to hire 500 technical professionals here.

The new center is the company’s second in Colombia, having opened its first IT center in Bogota in 2020.

As a result of the Medellin expansion, “Colombia joins Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Mexico in the list of countries that have two centers of this type for the entire Mercado Libre operation,” according to a joint press release from Mercado Libre, Medellin’s Agencia de Cooperacion e Inversion de Medellin y el Area Metropolitana (ACI, the investment promotion agency) and Ruta N, Medellin’s local high-tech landing site and incubator.

“For the start-up of the new IT Center, job openings will be filled by local experts and talents in skills such as back-end and front-end software, mobile development, IT security, business intelligence, machine learning, data science, application infrastructure [and] user experience, among others,” according to the company.

“After a 2020 of exceptional growth, we decided to redouble this effort in Antioquia,” said Mercado Libre Andean Region Director Jaime Ramírez.

“We are sure that the ecosystem of digital entrepreneurship and the innovative approach that positions Medellín as the city of the fourth industrial revolution is the right place for this second center,” he added.

Founded in 1999, Mercado Libre offers on-line platforms for individuals and companies to buy, sell, advertise and pay for goods and services online.

The “MercadoLibre.com” web site “is among the 50 most-visited sites in the world in terms of page views and is the mass consumption platform with the highest number of unique visitors in the most important countries where it operates, according to metrics provided by ComScore Networks,” the company added.