For more than a decade, Somapay has helped businesses across Brazil simplify payroll and give employees faster access to credit. But as the company grew beyond its regional roots, its technology foundation couldn't keep pace.

One of the biggest challenges was seasonality. Nearly 70% of all transactions occurred within the first three business days of each month, creating massive spikes in demand. With Somapay's previous infrastructure, scaling required manual intervention.

"Our main difficulty was scaling efficiently," explains Alexandre Silva, chief technology officer. "Either we invested in technology by keeping resources running all month, or we risked delays and poor service for customers during peak demand. That model simply wasn't sustainable." Both options were costly and limited Somapay's ability to grow confidently.

Beyond scaling, Somapay also lacked visibility into its microservices, which made it difficult to trace requests, resolve performance issues, or plan for new growth. The technology team wanted an elastic environment that provided flexibility while also giving them control and insight into how the platform behaved at scale.

When evaluating options, Somapay looked for more than just infrastructure. The leadership team wanted a partner that could understand their business and design a tailored migration path. "Google Cloud stood out because of how closely the team listened to our needs," Silva recalls. "Our partner, Golden Cloud, brought us a proposal that felt like it was built for Somapay, not a one-size-fits-all migration."

With confidence in both the platform and the partner, Somapay decided to modernize on Google Cloud, setting the stage for nationwide expansion and stronger digital services.

Somapay updated its architecture with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Cloud SQL, creating a platform built for speed and resilience. The migration process was carefully executed: The company replicated its production environment, synchronized databases in real time, and validated every service before gradually shifting customer workloads. This strategy allowed Somapay to achieve a zero-downtime migration while strengthening disaster recovery with mirrored environments.

With GKE, Somapay gained the ability to orchestrate services dynamically. "Now we can have more than one version of the same microservice running in parallel," Silva says. "If I want to release version 1.1, I don't have to interrupt version 1.0. I can route requests at runtime, test the new release with specific customers, and scale resources only where needed. That was impossible in our old environment."

Cloud SQL added the same elasticity for data. The database automatically scales processing capacity in line with transaction volume, ensuring payroll runs complete smoothly regardless of customer load.

Meanwhile, using Identity and Access Management, Somapay can now restrict access by role and keep detailed logs of every action, giving auditors a clear trail. With Cloud Storage, payroll data is encrypted and stored under clear retention policies, ensuring sensitive records are protected and compliant with financial regulations.

For Somapay, moving to Google Cloud is just the first step in a longer transformation. The company's strategy is to deepen customer loyalty by offering a growing range of services, making payroll the entry point to a broader financial ecosystem.

"We increasingly want to provide new services to our customers," Silva says. "The more services our customers use, the more loyal they will be and the more they will promote our brand. We are in a constant process of creating new products, and all of them are tied to technology."

Artificial intelligence is at the center of this roadmap. By 2026, Somapay plans to adopt Google AI tools to deliver more personalized experiences for both customers and employees. "We will soon be exploring the tools Google offers for creating AI applications," Silva explains. "We want to increasingly have applications that provide a unique customer experience that personalizes the customer journey."