From Doing Everything to Going Deep

Six years of startup work taught me to wear every hat. Coming to Leverege taught me how nice it is when you can pick just one.

Rodrigo Chireia
Senior Software Engineer

At every startup I worked at before Leverege, I never got to see the full loop close. I built things, shipped them, and then moved on to the next problem before any real feedback arrived. That’s the cadence of early-stage work: there's always more to build and rarely enough customers to tell you whether what you built was actually right.

Building PitCrew at Leverege is completely different, and it's the thing I'm most excited about in my career right now.

Six Years, Two Startups, Every Hat in the Closet

I studied information systems in college, thinking I'd become a technical manager. Then an internship pulled me into engineering, and I stayed. My managers always said I had a strong eye for front-end detail, and I followed that instinct. For six years across two startups, I worked as a full-stack engineer focused on front-end development, but the job was never just code. It was product ownership, customer conversations, project management, architecture decisions from scratch. I touched every layer.

Before Leverege, I worked at an IoT startup with my good friend. Just us, building an entire SaaS platform over a year and a half. It was one of the best experiences of my career, but when he left to join Google, the rhythm we had was gone. He pointed me toward Leverege and put in a good word. A month later, I started the next era of my career.

Finally, Someone to Think Alongside

The thing that appealed to me when deciding to join Leverege was simple: there was a design team, and QA! These weren't things I'd had before. As a front-end engineer who cared about UI quality, I had spent years making decisions I wasn't fully confident in because I had no one to bounce off of. Having a dedicated design team meant I could go deeper on actual engineering and architecture instead of splitting my attention across both.

During my first six months, I kept discovering how much already existed at Leverege, how dense the systems and stack and knowledge were. In my previous roles, we had to build everything because nothing was there yet. Here, I can contribute incrementally to something that already has momentum, learn from specialists, and go deep without having to go wide. The experience has been even better than I expected, and I came in with high hopes. 

Building Something People Actually Use

Last year I helped rebrand and redesign PitCrew from scratch, touching every part of the UI and building real context about how it was built and where it could be better. Now the product has genuine traction. Real customers, real feedback, real signals about what people actually need. It’s exhilarating.

For the first time in my career, I'm seeing the feedback loop close. Building something, shipping it, watching it get used, understanding what the next iteration should be, and going back into the architecture with that knowledge. This was never possible for me in my earlier roles, where the product I was working on was still finding its footing. Now I stay close to sales and product management conversations. Not because I'm asked to, but because their feedback is the most valuable input I have.

The One Thing That Makes It All Work

None of this works without a specific kind of company culture, one where people are actually trying to find the best solution instead of trying to win arguments. At previous jobs, I had to be careful in technical discussions, watching my words so I didn't bruise someone's ego. Here I can just talk. Discussions at Leverege are focused on what's best for the customer and the company, not on who's right.

If I had to give one piece of advice to anyone who wants to join Leverege, it’s this: Don’t be a jerk. If your ego needs protecting, you won't grow here. The people who thrive are the ones who care more about the product than about being the smartest person in the room.

~ Quick Facts ~

  • My Leverege Shoutout: Hannah, our Chief Product Officer. She's involved in every project, understands each one at real depth, and still manages to be the most empathetic person in the room. She can be direct and firm and warm at the same time, while staying on top of more things simultaneously than I can figure out. I'm still studying how she does it.
  • Life Outside of Work: Church, family, and the gym. Three years ago I was around 300 pounds and started having health concerns. I built a routine. Now it's just part of life.
  • Content Recommendation: Any Jim Carrey movie. I've seen most of them many times. I just like the guy. 
  • Could Give a TED Talk About: Custom keyboards. I've been building on the same Keychron for three years. Everything on it is modified except the aluminum case. Every few months I take a day to try the latest mod going around online. I always think about replacing it, but there are too many memories in this thing.

Rodrigo Chireia

Senior Software Engineer

Rodrigo is a software engineer with eight years of experience, primarily in frontend development. He has built multiple UIs for soy producers in Brazil, and has also created the UI for a startup that manages IoT solutions. Outside of work, Rodrigo loves to play volleyball, work out, and ride his motorcycle.

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