cover_letter / art_Am6qhqS4mQs

Dear Starlink Aviation Sales Hiring Team, SpaceX is doing something genuinely rare: building infrastructure that doesn't just connect the world but extends connectivity beyond it — and Starlink Aviation represents one of the most consequential near-term expressions of that mission, bringing high-throughput, low-latency satellite internet to aircraft that have historically operated in a connectivity dead zone. My interest in this role is grounded in a specific intersection: I hold an FAA Private Pilot License (with CFI intentions) and an FAA Commercial Drone License, which means I understand aviation operations, airspace constraints, and the real friction points pilots and operators face — not as abstractions, but from the left seat. **Technical and Product Foundation** My 12+ years span software engineering, platform infrastructure, and technical product management — with a consistent thread of building developer-facing and enterprise-scale systems and then translating that technical depth into commercial outcomes. At Intuit, I owned the ICE platform — a developer infrastructure layer serving QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mint, Mailchimp, and Credit Karma — and scaled it to 675M+ engagements in FY23, growing throughput from 6K to 50K TPS via an rSocket migration supporting approximately 1.5M concurrent connections at sub-25ms TP99. That work required deep fluency in network infrastructure, capacity planning, and the ability to communicate technical tradeoffs to both engineering teams and executive stakeholders — the same balance this role demands when explaining Starlink's network architecture to enterprise aviation customers. At Splunk, I owned Search Service (Go microservices) and Splunk Processing Language, building roadmaps and PRDs for Splunk Cloud Services while leading a query performance initiative that achieved up to 10x improvements for a Fortune 500 beta customer. Earlier, at Kaiser Permanente, I led enterprise rollout of Splunk Logging-as-a-Service at 1.7 TB daily volume across 200+ internal customers, and built caching infrastructure using Redis to address scalability and fault tolerance — work that maps directly to the enterprise network infrastructure experience this role requires. As a founder, I've operated at the intersection of product, sales, and go-to-market execution. At Streamio AI and Fintellect AI, I led 0-to-1 product strategy, conducted customer discovery interviews, established partnerships, and executed App Store launches — building the full commercial motion from prototype to paying customers. I understand what it takes to develop sales enablement collateral, defend pricing strategy internally, and iterate on go-to-market based on real customer feedback. **Why This Role** The Starlink Aviation opportunity sits precisely at the intersection of enterprise technical sales, network infrastructure, and aviation — three domains where I have direct, traceable experience. What draws me specifically to this role is the product complexity: selling Starlink Aviation isn't a commodity transaction. It requires explaining phased array antenna performance, beam-switching behavior, regulatory licensing across jurisdictions, and integration with existing avionics and cabin management systems — and then translating all of that into a commercial model a fleet operator or airline procurement team can act on. That is a product sales motion I'm built for. **Selected Relevant Experience** - **675M+ platform engagements at Intuit (FY23):** Scaled ICE infrastructure from 6K to 50K TPS via rSocket migration, supporting ~1.5M concurrent connections at sub-25ms TP99 — directly relevant to understanding and communicating enterprise network performance to aviation customers evaluating Starlink's latency and throughput guarantees. - **Enterprise network infrastructure at Kaiser Permanente:** Led Splunk Logging-as-a-Service rollout (1.7 TB/day, 200+ enterprise customers) and built Redis-based caching for scalability and fault tolerance across multiple datacenters — foundational enterprise networking experience. - **10x query performance improvement at Splunk:** Led benchmark testing initiative for a Fortune 500 beta customer, building a mirrored topology to isolate and resolve performance bottlenecks — demonstrates the analytical rigor and customer-facing technical depth this role requires. - **ICE Self-Service platform (Intuit):** Reduced developer onboarding from 2–3 weeks to minutes, mitigating $1M+ in projected opex — experience designing and defending product and pricing strategies with measurable business impact. - **0-to-1 go-to-market execution (Streamio AI / Fintellect AI):** Led customer discovery, pricing strategy, influencer partnerships, and App Store launch for two consumer/enterprise AI products — direct experience building GTM collateral and executing commercial launches under ambiguity. - **FAA Private Pilot License + FAA Commercial Drone License:** Operational aviation experience that informs genuine understanding of general aviation and commercial flight operations — the customer base this role serves. - **DeveloperWeek 2022 and Splunk .conf18/.conf19 speaker:** Demonstrated ability to represent a technical product at industry conferences and communicate complex infrastructure to diverse audiences — directly applicable to representing Starlink at global aviation events. - **Conducted enterprise-wide Service Language Assessment at Intuit (9 languages, presented to CTO):** Experience synthesizing technical and usage data into strategic recommendations and defending them to senior leadership — the internal advocacy this role requires when proposing pricing or product changes. **Closing** SpaceX's mission — making humanity multiplanetary — depends on building the economic engine that funds it, and Starlink is central to that engine. Starlink Aviation isn't just a revenue line; it's the proof point that satellite broadband can meet the reliability and performance bar that commercial and business aviation operators demand. I want to be part of making that case to the market — with the technical credibility to answer hard network questions, the product instincts to sharpen pricing and GTM strategy, and the aviation background to speak the customer's language from the first conversation. I'd welcome the opportunity to discuss how my background maps to what the Starlink Aviation team is building. Respectfully, **O. Felix Amoruwa** famoruwa@berkeley.edu | 909-731-9011 | felixamoruwa.info