In this episode, we’re joined by Ali Elgamal, EVP and CTO at Tamara, one of Saudi Arabia’s three fintech unicorns and a market leader in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) space.
The Guest: Ali Elgamal, EVP and CTO at Tamara
Ali takes us through his journey that led to Tamara, sharing his leadership philosophy, strategies for building top tech talent, and insights into navigating BNPL in a regulated environment. He also offers his vision for the transformative role of AI in the future of fintech.
Some highlights of this episode include:
Q: With AI, how do you see software development changing over the next four or five years?
"When it comes to AI and software development, I see it as something that will significantly improve developer experience and productivity. It will become a standard expectation that engineers have AI support. I also foresee a fundamental shift in how some solutions are designed and built. For example, you mentioned agents and MCPs. We are already experimenting with MCPs internally — we’ve created our own agent that is used for debugging. If someone has an issue, such as understanding what’s happening with a specific order, the agent gathers data from different internal sources and produces an analysis, like: the customer exceeded the debt burden ratio allowed by the regulator, and so on. This fundamentally changes how we work. Software that was once designed in a very traditional way — service-oriented, REST APIs, microservices architecture — will gradually shift to being more agent-based. It’s only a matter of time, and I’ve already seen systems being built in this way.
I’m not just talking about the obvious use cases, like agentic workflows or IDE assistants, because everyone is experimenting with those. The real change will come from a deeper shift in software design and architecture, and I believe that’s where we’re heading."
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