- People of OLX
2 min. read
“Too tech for Finance, too Finance for Tech”: How I built a FinOps team from zero
After years sitting between Tech and Finance, Pedro saw a problem no one else was solving. His internal move wasn’t about climbing a ladder. It was about building something that didn’t exist yet — and proving it could work.
How has your career evolved at OLX?
My whole career has been in digital companies, from SaaS, to e-commerce, and now in online marketplaces. Always sitting between Tech and Finance. Over time, I realized I was having the same conversation again and again, just from different sides of the table.
As work became hyper-digital and because tech is at the very core of every digital company, managing this budget became increasingly specialized and technically complex. Over time, ownership and accountability became the real problem to tackle.
The problem is simple: engineers do what they’re paid to do: ship fast, keep systems stable, and scale reliably. They optimize for resilience, quality, and speed. Cost matters, but it’s just not the first item on their list.
On the other side, Finance wants predictability, KPIs, and capital discipline, but still uses control models built for a pre-cloud world. Gating, approvals, and static budgets don’t work in pay-as-you-go environments.
That’s where FinOps clicked for me. You can’t manage modern tech with old playbook. You need new systems, new processes that are automated and embedded in how teams actually work.
Moving into this role was my way to earn my seat on the table in Tech from the inside and build financial mechanisms that fit that reality.
What’s been the biggest win or learning so far?
It was a reset. A new territory, but exactly what I was looking for. I often say now that I’ve become “too tech for Finance and too Finance for Tech”.
Over the last 2.5 years, I built a team from zero, went deep into engineering, learned to code enough to automate things myself, and got hooked on how tech teams really work. Tech operates differently. Feedback is instant. Collaboration is intense. Automation is the default. Finance has a lot to learn from that culture.
The biggest win was proving this works in real life, not just in decks. The delivered results to OLX. And it was even recognized externally.
We were invited to speak at FinOps X (Barcelona) and AWS Summits in Berlin, London, and Poland, and became TBM Council Finalists for Value Gear, our R&D ROI model, in Value Realization and Cloud Transformation.
What “too tech for Finance, too Finance for Tech” actually looks like
Pedro’s story isn’t about abandoning Finance for Tech, or vice versa. It’s about finding the space where both disciplines need to evolve — and stepping into that space intentionally.
Here’s what 2.5 years of building a FinOps function looks like:
✅ Building a team from zero
✅ Learning to code to automate financial processes
✅ Embedding financial discipline into how engineering teams actually work
✅ Speaking at international conferences (FinOps X, AWS Summits)
✅ Becoming TBM Council Finalists for Value Gear R&D ROI model
✅ Proving that modern tech needs modern financial systems
But maybe more importantly, it looks like this:
Finding a problem that matters. Owning it. Building the solution. And proving it works.
Not because someone handed him the role. But because he saw the gap and stepped into it.
Considering a move to OLX?
We’re looking for people who see problems worth solving — and have the courage to step into them.
If you’re driven by impact and looking for a place where internal mobility means building something new, not just filling an open role, explore what’s possible.
We have a whole bunch of new and exciting things happening at OLX. Keen to be a part of it? Click below to explore our open roles.