Rivio Talent: Filipe Xavier, Principal Software Engineer

Filipe Xavier works at Rivio as a Principal Software Engineer, leading the architecture and development of the scalable distributed systems that form the backbone of the company’s technology.

A Computer Science graduate of the University of Cuiabá (Unic), Filipe has more than 12 years of experience in software engineering, with a track record focused on building and scaling complex systems used by millions of users. His career combines deep technical expertise with product vision and agile execution.

One of Filipe’s standout technical strengths is his active contribution to the open source community. He contributes to major global projects such as the Linux kernel and Kubernetes, which shows his ability to operate at a high technical level and solve fundamental problems end to end.

Away from development, he studies investing and never turns down a good barbecue — preferably paired with his collection of hot peppers.

Whether he is leading teams, systems, the grill or a bike ride, Filipe never loses sight of the details

Why did you choose to join Rivio?

Filipe: I came for the challenge of building something transformative from scratch, and of learning throughout the whole journey.

Transforming hospitals’ revenue cycle, leaving the manual, handcrafted model behind and putting in place a 100% technology-driven, scalable system built on AI agents, has a direct effect on the lives of millions of Brazilians. That excites me.

It sounds simple, but our purpose of letting hospitals take care of their patients’ health while we take care of the hospitals’ health brings about a revolution in the country’s quality of life. And that is the dream of every technical professional and specialist: seeing a direct effect on people’s lives and realizing they are actually building an improvement for society.

What is the technology culture like at Rivio?

Filipe: Our technology culture combines technical excellence with customer obsession. The level of the artificial intelligence engineers at Rivio can be considered high, but the goal is not “tech for tech’s sake.” Our priority is solving real pain points in hospital operations management.

We also work side by side with the Product team. That synergy lets us take an active part in defining the roadmap and priorities, bringing data, client learnings and technical feasibility to the table. We also like to work side by side with the nurse auditors: they are the ones who bring our clients’ most important or most urgent pain points.

Here at Rivio, everyone values ownership, speed with quality and pragmatic, impact‑driven decisions.

Tell us about an important moment you have experienced at Rivio.

Filipe: A very special moment was the day we delivered an unprecedented product that, for the first time in the country, covers the entire hospital revenue cycle, from audit to post-billing. It was 100 very intense days, with no weekends, working by day and late into the night.

We saw that period as a tech marathon, with well-defined goals and a deadline to meet. At the end of the process, when we connected directly to the hospitals to test the service we had built, it was a very emotional moment. We even opened a bottle of sparkling wine to mark it.

It was not a celebration so much as a way of marking a very important milestone for us personally, for the company as well, but above all for Brazilian healthcare. We realized it was not just another product on the market, but a differentiator for an industry whose administrative and operational side had not kept pace with the development of the clinical side.

In your opinion, what makes a good fit for Rivio’s tech and artificial intelligence team?

Filipe: A good fit for Rivio’s tech team involves, at the very least, a willingness to learn and no fear of experimenting. We want to work with professionals who keep their “curiosity” mode permanently switched on, people hungry to learn and to go deeper technically, engineers who seek knowledge constantly and proactively. It is essential to be a tech person who is not satisfied with theory but, on the contrary, insists on experimenting, testing and creating value.

Is there any other trait you consider important when hiring for your team?

Filipe: Yes, we take the person’s strategic vision into account. We always assess whether the person seeks to understand the whole picture and the context, not just their own piece of code. We look for professionals who know how to connect technique to business needs. And we also value what you might call the old-school “troubleshooter profile,” that is, the person who solves the problem, whatever its complexity, whether it lies in the infrastructure layer or in the business rules. Needs fixing? They fix it.

Your colleagues also know you for the care and affection you put into a slow-roasted beef rib, a type of barbecue that takes more than 12 hours of dedication. Does that care, that discipline, reflect anything you apply in your professional work?

Filipe: I would say that slow-roasting beef ribs over a fire is almost an art. That is how I see it, at least. It is not enough to put the meat on the coals. You have to plan, buy the right products, choose the right cut of meat and the seasonings that best match it, prepare the setting, control the fire and respect the time the meat needs to reach the right doneness. The process requires patience, attention to detail and confidence that the result will come if each step is handled with care.

Something very similar happens in the work of a systems engineer. Complex projects are not solved instantly. In general, they require planning, careful data selection, a consistent architecture and cycles of testing and tuning. Just as with barbecue, I believe every detail makes a difference. In the world of AI, the temperature of the coals or the right seasoning translate into well-calibrated parameters, precise lines of code and fine‑tuned models.

In the end, I can assure you the pleasure is the same. Seeing the result, whether in the guests’ satisfaction with a perfect rib or in the experience of clients who receive a reliable, transformative technology solution, is rewarding for whoever runs the process. I think my grill-master side and my engineer side talk to each other.