sidecut.

PAULO BARRETO / REMOTE, ONTARIO

I run technical discovery, and I build what it finds.

I've sold B2B software since 2012, most recently to Canadian and US government buyers at Clio. When discovery kept turning up the same questions, I built Gov Copilot, a Claude plugin that preps calls and checks proposals for Clio's government team, and shipped 33 releases of it in three weeks.

See the workDownload my resume

At a glance

NOW
Government & Public Sector, Clio
BUILDING
Sidecut Studio, since June 2026
LOOKING FOR
Solutions Engineering · Technical Pre-Sales · AI Solutions
BASED
Remote, Ontario, Canada

SIDECUT STUDIO / SINCE JUNE 2026

Things I've built

Products I build on my own time, each one started by a problem I kept running into.

01 / AI creative workspacePrivate release

Sidecut Builder

Turn a short brief into a working site or deck, in one chat.

The problem
I kept moving between a chat, a design tool and a coding agent to make one good thing. Every hand-off made the next change harder.
The trade-off
Keep the work exportable as static files rather than pretend it is a full hosting platform.
  • Isolated AI workspaces
  • Live previews
  • Saved versions
  • Brand looks that carry over
How it's built

Builder runs AI-assisted creation in isolated Vercel Sandboxes, previews the output and keeps each finished version. Saved looks carry a brand into the next piece of work.

  • TanStack Start
  • Vercel Sandbox
  • Neon
  • AI agents
02 / Native iPhone appIn development

After Nine

Gives a couple one idea that fits their evening, instead of a list to scroll.

The problem
Another long list of ideas is still another decision. The useful answer is one thing that fits the time and energy you have.
The trade-off
Hand out one idea at a time, never the whole list. That keeps the choice easy and the catalogue from being copied.
  • One idea at a time
  • Catalogue stays on the server
How it's built

A native SwiftUI app over an authored library of about 200 ideas. Each idea comes from the server one at a time, behind sign-in and a per-account limit, so the app itself never carries the catalogue.

  • SwiftUI
  • Supabase
  • Authored content
03 / Developer workflowPrivate release

Pair Board

Runs Claude Code and Codex on separate tasks and brings each one back to me as a pull request.

The problem
More coding agents should mean less branch babysitting, not a new pile of conflicts and half-finished pull requests.
The trade-off
Keep it local and make merges strict: a PR merges only when every required check passed and the other agent approved that exact commit. Automation should bring decisions back with context, not quietly make them for me.
  • One worktree per task
  • CI and review loops
  • The other agent reviews
How it's built

Each task gets its own Git worktree and branch. Failed checks, review comments and conflicts go back to its agent; a human stays in charge of merging.

  • Git worktrees
  • GitHub
  • Claude Code
  • Codex

The pictures are illustrations, not screenshots. These are private builds, so there's no public demo or source to link yet. I'm happy to walk through any of them on a call.

AT CLIO

Tools I built for my own job

I built these for my own government and public-sector work at Clio. Gov Copilot does the prep and follow-up around a deal, and the library keeps its answers tied to a source.

PERSONAL INITIATIVE · NOT AN OFFICIAL CLIO PRODUCT
01 / Claude workflow pluginPRIVATE / INTERNAL

Gov Copilot

Helps Clio's government reps prep calls, turn them into paste-ready Salesforce notes and check proposal figures. It drafts; the rep sends.

The problem
Public-sector sales work brings research, multiple stakeholders, lengthy requirements and a lot of follow-through. The useful context was scattered across tools and dated answers.
A deliberate choice
Keep the human as the last step. It prepares and drafts, but never sends an email, publishes a message or updates Salesforce on anyone's behalf.
  • 33 releases in three weeks
  • 324 tests and 161 eval cases
  • Drafts, never sends
How it's built

I built a private Claude plugin, shared with Clio's government team, for call preparation, after-call notes, source-backed research, proposals, questionnaires, handoff and feedback. It uses each rep's own connector permissions, and checker scripts refuse output with broken links, unpasteable notes or prices that don't match the deal.

  • Claude
  • Agent Skills
  • Connectors
  • Node checks
02 / Governed knowledge systemPRIVATE / INTERNAL

Gov Team Library

Every answer points to a dated source, so I can tell when it might be out of date.

The problem
A useful answer can become a risky answer when a pricing, procurement or policy source changes and nobody notices. Search alone does not solve that.
A deliberate choice
A missing or stale source is a question to investigate, not a licence to guess. The library uses a checked source-and-date model and bounded retrieval instead of passing every answer to the model.
  • 143 cards, 361 dated sources
  • Flags stale answers
  • Says when it doesn't know
How it's built

I designed a card-based internal library with provenance, review dates, region-aware retrieval, freshness indicators and build-time validation. Answers cite the matched cards and make unsupported gaps explicit. When a test run showed fresh cards could still be wrong, I re-checked 135 against their sources and 47 had changed.

  • Knowledge design
  • Retrieval
  • Source checks
  • TypeScript

Both tools are private. The diagrams are illustrations and contain no company data, customer details or internal sources.

APPROACH

How I work on a problem

Most of the work is finding out what someone actually needs, then proving the answer works.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    I start with the work around the problem. Gov Copilot began with the follow-up after every government call: what got asked, and where the answer lived.

  2. 02

    Build

    I write the spec and the checks I want, then direct Claude Code and Codex to build it, one task per branch, and review every change before it merges.

  3. 03

    Test

    I run each flow myself on a phone and a laptop before it ships. In Gov Copilot, every answer cites a dated source so a rep can check it.

ABOUT

Hi, I'm Paulo.

I've spent my career in B2B software, working with the people who buy it. These days that's government and public-sector teams at Clio. The part I've always liked best is working out how their process really runs, and lately I've been building the tools myself.

Before Clio, I ranked first on my team at FullStory and at Process Street.

I started Sidecut Studio in June 2026 to build my own products. I write the specs, direct AI coding agents and test every release. I want my next role to be this work, full time.

DAY JOBGovernment & Public Sector AE / Clio
SINCE JUNE 2026Founder / Sidecut Studio
NEXT CHAPTERSolutions Engineering · Technical Pre-Sales · AI Solutions

GET IN TOUCH

Let's talk about the work.

I'm looking for Solutions Engineering, Technical Pre-Sales and AI Solutions roles, where the job is to understand a customer's problem and build the thing that solves it. Remote from Ontario, open to EMEA and worldwide teams.

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