Summary
Marcel Nicolay is a seasoned technology leader and payments expert with over 16 years building high-availability platforms and product teams across Brazil’s largest digital businesses. As Co-Founder & CTO of Malga (YC-backed) he led product and engineering from idea to PM-fit, drove API/SDK and PCI Level 1 efforts, and helped process over R$1bn TPV while raising $6.5M. His career spans senior roles at Zoop, iFood, Evino and Gympass where he shaped payment orchestration, banking-as-a-service and dynamic pricing systems supporting millions of users and mission-critical uptime. Marcel combines hands-on engineering (Python/Node, infra/AWS) with executive product strategy, having managed teams of 30–50 and led major migrations like PIX integrations with Brazil’s central bank. He’s also an early open-source maintainer (projects with +70 stars) and a founder of multiple AI and fintech ventures, reflecting a curiosity that extends into philosophy, travel and family life. Based in São Paulo, he now focuses on vertical AI and financial product advisory while continuing to build developer-first platforms.
16 years of coding experience
20 years of employment as a software developer
Y Combinator
Estácio de Sá University
English, Portuguese