iFood

About the company

iFood is the biggest food delivery service in Latin America and an unquestionable global giant in the industry, right up there with DoorDash, Deliveroo, and others. Backed by relevant global VCs and companies, such as Innova Capital and Just Eat, it is currently worth, as of the latest round, USD 5.4 billion. By the time I left, the company had about 5k+ employees, with the design team being around 40+.

My journey there

I joined right after the Logistics team was created. We were responsible for creating and maturing the newly developed driver product. At that point, iFood used to partner with several third party delivery companies to offer the actual delivery service to restaurants. However, even then, most restaurants would use their own solution, utilizing iFood only as the storefront. Changing this scenario was the challenge.

It was a special moment, as the team was just starting to take shape. We joked around that being in the Logistics team was like being in a startup inside of another startup. We had the benefits of not having to be knee-deep into the weeds of financial balance－given that iFood already was a considerably mature startup at that point－but, naturally, had to be very scrappy & fast.

All the Logistics team worked from this tiny, messy, and cozy office.

As the team's first designer, I learned more than I could've ever hoped for－it speaks to the advantages of a very cross-functional team. The whole Logistics product team consisted of a tiny group of 3, maybe 4, engineers in charge of setting up all the core APIs and infrastructure. There was definitely a lot to do and figure out.

Cases deep dive

Shipping the driver app v1

We had to lift this app from the ground up, creating the foundations for hyper-growth and an operationally mature business.

Read the case study

Revamping the onboarding flow

As with any newly released product, onboarding is a structural piece of the user flow. After shipping the app’s first version, we tucked in to properly design this.

Read the case study

Designing the earning manegement experience

For a driver, managing earnings and expenses is a daily action, a critical moment of their journey to making a living through the app.

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Closing thoughts

iFood was a pivotal moment in my career. Being a solo designer in a moment so demanding like that put me to the test multiple times, but I'm glad the team went through it all together. We learned how to work together through a bunch of trial and error and, ultimately, strongly supported the Logistics unit growth, especially given that iFood had just received its biggest round of funding, which had a significant portion of it directed to us.

I'm happy to know that much of my work was useful to future designers and PMs who continued working on the product. A lot has changed since I left, which is how things roll, but I'm confident we developed a product that helped shape the overall foundation for the organization to grow－to a hopefully better place－and, to this day, stands strong as one of the most robust driver products, at least in LATAM.

Google Play back then. The logo I designed is still there, though!