Scaling Convenience: Inside Glovo’s Global Tech Strategy

The global online food delivery services market is set to reach US$600 bn by 2033, according to Market Research Intellect. 

Yet, as platforms scale, the complexity of managing a three-sided quick-commerce (Q-Commerce) marketplace – of customers, riders and partners – grows exponentially. 

For technical leaders, the challenge has shifted from simply building an app to orchestrating a massive global infrastructure, one which Gartner predicts augmented engineering will soon save developers up to 40% of their time on routine tasks.

Glovo is a tech platform that connects millions of users with local restaurants, grocers and retailers. To work in this demanding market, its technical foundation needs to be robust enough to scale across 22 countries while remaining agile enough to innovate daily.

Here, Shiro Theuri, Chief Technology Officer at Glovo, discusses how she balances rapid product expansion with the architectural discipline required to make convenience a global reality.

Glovo operates at enormous scale across 22 markets – what are the biggest technology challenges in keeping a platform of that size agile and performant?

It certainly is a challenge! 

Fortunately, we have amazing local teams operating in every different territory we’re present in. Within those local teams are people responsible for operations, commercial, sales, account management and more.

Our role really is to provide the infrastructure that allows us to operate smoothly across all our territories. It’s the people on the ground that maintain the close relationships with the partners, riders and customers. 

Amongst the senior leaders, we also travel to local territories as needed. For example, when a new offering or payment service is being rolled out. 

How is AI changing how your teams build and operate?

First and foremost, it’s an extremely useful technology that all organisations must be utilising where most effective. 

For Glovo, we view it in three key ways. 

Firstly, it was about laying the foundation for Glovo employees to be able to harness and adopt AI in a secure, responsible and governed way. This is an important first step, given the amount of noise and tooling out there. 

Secondly, for us in the tech team, one of the major utilities is code generation. We call it augmented engineering, which, as long as it is done carefully and precisely, is a huge time saver. We’re seeing this used more and more among our team as the months go by. 

Lastly, it’s about education, again due to the sheer volume of noise and information available. We like to offer our dev teams options for them to explore and become familiar with. They can then discern what is productive for us versus what isn’t. 

Our role as leaders is to be guardians during that process, to ensure they are protected and the quality of the work is as high as possible. 

How is Glovo ensuring responsible and equitable use of AI for the likes of riders, partners and customers as it becomes further embedded in delivery logistics?

It’s very much on us as leaders within the team to discern what is and isn’t a safe, responsible use of AI and to then guide the teams accordingly. 

There is such an abundance of tools and information out there, some of which can be harmful, or at the very least, inaccurate. 

We see it very much as an education process, which is ongoing given the rapidly shifting AI landscape. 

How is Glovo exploring emerging technologies like robotics or drones? What’s your view on their realistic role in the future of last-mile delivery?

We’re certainly interested in the role of both robotics and drones in assisting with delivery. Elsewhere in the world, they’re more advanced in this department; in Europe, we’re still working through how to do things in a safe, regulated way. 

In dense urban areas, there’s no doubt that drone deliveries will be able to cut delivery times, which, as Q-Commerce evolves, is largely the name of the game. 

There are pros and cons, as always. Robotics are very expensive, but don’t tire like human couriers. 

At this early stage, there seems to be a lot that can go wrong. We at Glovo only want to proceed with tech that doesn’t pose a real risk to the company and our users. 

What key lessons have you learned about building and leading diverse, global engineering teams?

Moving into the CTO role, this was certainly one of the key muscles I had to quickly grow and become comfortable flexing. 

When I joined as a senior director, I had maybe 150 people under my management; now that number is 400. Being accountable for the work of that many people, but also fostering an environment where they’re encouraged to work with autonomy and creativity, is a huge part of my day-to-day role. 

Glovo has always been proactive in building diverse, global teams – I was headhunted for the role whilst living and working in Nairobi, for example. I’m a big advocate for women in tech and ensure I’m an active mentor for women making their way. 

My experience has been a positive one; I’ve always been lifted and advocated for by men throughout my career, which has helped me get to where I am today. 

What does “tech with purpose” mean to you and how does that philosophy shape Glovo’s approach to innovation and impact?

As a company, we’re continually thinking about ways in which we can make an impact, and there are various programmes and schemes in place to ensure we’re as involved as we can be. 

From a tech perspective, one of the most notable recent collaborations was the rollout of micro donations. When Glovo customers now make orders, there is a clear and easy way for them to make donations to a charity or foundation of their choice. 

We also run hackathons every year that we call ‘impactathons’, where we bring engineers together to brainstorm and explore different ways in which Glovo can develop creative solutions that do good in the world.