Add 6 cover letters (Jan 2026 HN) & founder resume symlink

Makefile

@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ venv:
 resume: jsonresume
 	venv/bin/rst2pdf content/pages/russell.ballestrini.resume.rst --stylesheets content/pages/russell.ballestrini.resume.style -o output/uploads/russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf
 	@echo "Creating softlinks for various job titles..."
+	@cd output/uploads && ln -sf russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf founder.russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf
 	@cd output/uploads && ln -sf russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf founding.engineer.russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf
 	@cd output/uploads && ln -sf russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf software.developer.russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf
 	@cd output/uploads && ln -sf russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf software.engineer.russell.ballestrini.resume.pdf

content/pages/cover-letters/2026-01-05-hatchet-founding-engineer-russell-ballestrini.rst

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+Hatchet - Founding Engineer
+===========================
+
+:date: 2026-01-05
+:slug: 2026-01-05-hatchet-founding-engineer-russell-ballestrini-cover-letter
+
+To the Hatchet team:
+
+I've been the engineer debugging why a background job silently failed at 3am. I've written the custom retry logic, the dead letter queue handlers, & the monitoring dashboards that Hatchet makes unnecessary. Building the infrastructure layer that lets other engineers focus on their actual problems is exactly the work I find most satisfying.
+
+At Remind, I managed RabbitMQ infrastructure handling millions of messages for 30M users. The complexity of ensuring reliable message delivery across 60+ microservices taught me why purpose-built task orchestration matters. Every team had slightly different retry strategies, timeout handling, & failure modes. A unified platform like Hatchet would have saved us countless hours of duplicated effort & subtle bugs.
+
+My background spans the stack you're building on: PostgreSQL (schema design, query optimization, replication at scale), Kubernetes (ECS/EKS deployments, container orchestration), & distributed systems patterns from years of AWS infrastructure work. While Go isn't my primary language, I've worked in polyglot environments my entire career (Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Java) & pick up new languages quickly. I've read enough Go to understand Hatchet's codebase & I'm genuinely excited to go deeper.
+
+What draws me to Hatchet specifically: you're building in the open. I've bootstrapped two SaaS products (Remarkbox, Make Post Sell) & open-sourced significant portions of my work. I understand the dynamics of building for developers who can read your code, file issues, & hold you accountable. It's a different kind of pressure than enterprise software, & I thrive in it.
+
+I'm looking for a founding role where I can own significant technical surface area & work directly with users. The combination of hard distributed systems problems, open-source community, & small team building something essential to modern infrastructure is exactly what I want.
+
+Russell Ballestrini
+
+https://russell.ballestrini.net | https://github.com/russellballestrini

content/pages/cover-letters/2026-01-05-kobold-metals-senior-infrastructure-engineer-russell-ballestrini.rst

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+KoBold Metals - Senior Infrastructure Engineer
+==============================================
+
+:date: 2026-01-05
+:slug: 2026-01-05-kobold-metals-senior-infrastructure-engineer-russell-ballestrini-cover-letter
+
+To KoBold Metals:
+
+The intersection of ML infrastructure & physical-world exploration is fascinating. Building systems that help scientists & engineers focus on discovery instead of infrastructure is exactly the kind of impact I'm looking for.
+
+My infrastructure background maps directly to this role:
+
+**Observability & reliability**: At Remind, I introduced Datadog with EC2 agents for container APM, logs, & custom metrics across 60+ microservices supporting 30M users. Built monitoring & alerting strategies that maximized uptime during COVID-19 lockdowns when our platform became critical infrastructure for distance learning. I understand what it takes to make systems observable & debuggable for teams who aren't infrastructure specialists.
+
+**MLOps & data infrastructure**: At Coursemojo (2022-2025), I scaled AI-powered educational services, designed CI/CD pipelines for model deployments, & built the infrastructure layer that let data scientists iterate quickly. Managed Elasticsearch clusters for search & analytics workloads. Experience with JupyterHub-style shared compute environments where multiple users need reliable, isolated access to resources.
+
+**Infrastructure-as-code & automation**: CloudFormation, Terraform, Ansible, SaltStack across my career. At Cofense (2020-2022), worked in security-focused environments (SOC2/FedRAMP) where infrastructure needed to be reproducible, auditable, & secure by default. Python is my primary language (15+ years), which aligns well with the scientific computing ecosystem.
+
+**AWS at scale**: ECS, EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, SQS, Lambda. Built infrastructure that handled millions of concurrent users & needed to be both cost-effective & reliable.
+
+KoBold's mission to transform mineral exploration into repeatable science using AI resonates with my interest in applied ML infrastructure. The backing from serious investors (T. Rowe Price, a16z, Breakthrough Energy) suggests this is a long-term bet on changing how critical minerals are discovered. I'd be excited to help build the infrastructure foundation that makes that possible.
+
+Russell Ballestrini
+
+https://russell.ballestrini.net | https://github.com/russellballestrini

content/pages/cover-letters/2026-01-05-radar-site-reliability-engineer-russell-ballestrini.rst

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+Radar - Site Reliability Engineer
+==================================
+
+:date: 2026-01-05
+:slug: 2026-01-05-radar-site-reliability-engineer-russell-ballestrini-cover-letter
+
+To Radar:
+
+1 billion+ API calls per day is the kind of scale where infrastructure decisions compound. Every inefficiency multiplies, every optimization pays dividends, & reliability isn't a feature; it's the product. That's the environment where I do my best work.
+
+My experience aligns with your requirements:
+
+**Production AWS via Terraform**: At Remind & Coursemojo, I managed AWS infrastructure using infrastructure-as-code (CloudFormation, Terraform). Built reproducible, auditable deployments across ECS, EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, & SQS. At Cofense, worked in security-focused environments (SOC2/FedRAMP) where infrastructure changes required approval workflows & compliance documentation.
+
+**Multi-region Kubernetes**: Managed containerized deployments on ECS/EKS supporting 60+ microservices at Remind. Built for high availability during COVID-19 lockdowns when our messaging platform became critical infrastructure for 30M users in distance learning. Understood the tradeoffs between consistency, availability, & partition tolerance in distributed deployments.
+
+**High-throughput data systems**: While my MongoDB experience is lighter than my PostgreSQL/MySQL background, I've managed Elasticsearch clusters with heavy read-write workloads & understand the patterns for scaling sharded, distributed databases. RabbitMQ infrastructure at Remind handled millions of messages daily with strict delivery guarantees.
+
+**High-growth startup experience**: Remind scaled from millions to tens of millions of users during my tenure. Coursemojo grew from MVP to production AI platform. I've lived through the infrastructure growing pains where yesterday's architecture becomes today's bottleneck.
+
+I care about customer success. The best infrastructure work is invisible to end users, but directly enables their experience. Geolocation is one of those foundational capabilities that powers features users love without them ever thinking about the complexity underneath. I'd be excited to help keep that complexity hidden & reliable.
+
+Russell Ballestrini
+
+https://russell.ballestrini.net | https://github.com/russellballestrini

content/pages/cover-letters/2026-01-05-redpanda-software-engineer-russell-ballestrini.rst

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+Redpanda - Software Engineer
+============================
+
+:date: 2026-01-05
+:slug: 2026-01-05-redpanda-software-engineer-russell-ballestrini-cover-letter
+
+To Redpanda:
+
+Streaming data infrastructure is where I want to be. The shift toward agentic systems makes reliable, low-latency data planes more critical than ever, & Redpanda is building the foundation that enables it.
+
+My distributed systems experience:
+
+**Messaging infrastructure at scale**: At Remind (2017-2020), I managed RabbitMQ infrastructure handling millions of messages daily for 30M users across 60+ microservices. Performed upgrades, migrations, & maintenance on messaging systems where downtime meant teachers couldn't reach students. Understood the operational complexity of message brokers: cluster management, partition strategies, consumer lag, & the subtle bugs that emerge under load.
+
+**High-throughput systems**: Built infrastructure supporting real-time messaging during COVID-19 lockdowns when our platform became critical for distance learning. Managed Elasticsearch clusters for search & analytics workloads. Designed systems where latency mattered & reliability was non-negotiable.
+
+**Infrastructure engineering**: 15+ years of AWS (ECS, EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, SQS), infrastructure-as-code (CloudFormation, Terraform), & observability (introduced Datadog at Remind). At Cofense (2020-2022), worked in security-focused environments where data handling required careful attention to compliance & auditability.
+
+I'll be direct about gaps: my C++ experience is limited, & I haven't implemented consensus protocols like Raft. My strength is in the surrounding ecosystem: operations, integrations, observability, & the developer experience layer. If you're hiring for roles closer to the Connect team (Go-based connectors, cloud integrations) or platform/operations work, that's where I'd add the most value immediately.
+
+What draws me to Redpanda: you're competing on performance & developer experience against entrenched infrastructure. That requires both technical excellence & a deep understanding of what developers actually need. I've built developer tools (open-source libraries, two bootstrapped SaaS products) & I care about that intersection.
+
+Russell Ballestrini
+
+https://russell.ballestrini.net | https://github.com/russellballestrini

content/pages/cover-letters/2026-01-05-temporal-technologies-senior-software-engineer-russell-ballestrini.rst

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+Temporal Technologies - Senior Software Engineer, Infrastructure Observability
+==============================================================================
+
+:date: 2026-01-05
+:slug: 2026-01-05-temporal-technologies-senior-software-engineer-russell-ballestrini-cover-letter
+:status: Applied 2026-01-08
+
+To Temporal:
+
+I built the observability practice at Remind from scratch. When I joined, we had 60+ microservices on ECS with minimal visibility into what was actually happening. I introduced Datadog with EC2 agents for container APM, logs, & custom metrics. Built dashboards that let engineers trace requests across service boundaries. Established alerting strategies that reduced incident response times & gave us early warning before users noticed problems.
+
+Then COVID-19 hit. Distance learning demand exploded & our platform became critical infrastructure for 30M users. The observability foundation I'd built meant we could identify bottlenecks in real-time, scale proactively, & debug production issues without flying blind. We survived that surge because we could see what was happening.
+
+At Coursemojo (2022-2025), I brought the same approach to a smaller team: instrumentation, structured logging, metrics pipelines, & the dashboards that made them useful. At Cofense (2020-2022), observability had compliance dimensions. SOC2/FedRAMP environments meant audit trails, log retention policies, & security-focused monitoring. I understand observability isn't just for debugging; it's for accountability.
+
+What draws me to Temporal's Infrastructure Observability role: you're building the platform that other companies' workflows run on. When something goes wrong, your customers need to understand why. The observability layer isn't a nice-to-have; it's how you build trust. I've been the engineer staring at dashboards during an incident, & I've been the engineer who built those dashboards months earlier. I know what information matters when things break.
+
+15+ years of distributed systems, AWS infrastructure, & Python. I've operated RabbitMQ clusters, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, & the monitoring systems that watch all of them. I want to bring that experience to Temporal.
+
+Russell Ballestrini
+
+https://russell.ballestrini.net | https://github.com/russellballestrini

content/pages/cover-letters/2026-01-05-trunk-tech-lead-russell-ballestrini.rst

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+Trunk - Tech Lead / Senior Platform Engineer
+=============================================
+
+:date: 2026-01-05
+:slug: 2026-01-05-trunk-tech-lead-russell-ballestrini-cover-letter
+
+To Trunk:
+
+Flaky tests & broken CI have stolen more engineering hours from my teams than any other single problem. At Remind, I watched talented engineers lose entire afternoons to "it works on my machine" mysteries while our test suite flickered between green & red for reasons nobody could explain. The problem you're solving is real & I've felt it deeply.
+
+At Coursemojo (2022-2025), I designed CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions & Docker for two monolithic services. Built the infrastructure that let a small team ship AI-powered educational tools reliably. The challenge wasn't writing the pipelines; it was maintaining confidence in them as the codebase grew. Every flaky test eroded trust, & eventually engineers started ignoring failures. That's the death spiral Trunk prevents.
+
+My infrastructure experience spans 15+ years: AWS (ECS, EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, CloudFormation), containerization & orchestration, Python & TypeScript, data pipelines, & observability (introduced Datadog at Remind for container APM across 60+ microservices). At Cofense (2020-2022), I worked in security-focused environments where CI/CD reliability wasn't optional. SOC2/FedRAMP compliance meant every deployment needed to be auditable & reproducible.
+
+The Platform/Data Engineering focus resonates strongly. Building data ingestion pipelines that handle real-time & batch data from CI systems is the kind of problem I enjoy: high throughput, diverse sources, & direct impact on developer experience. I've built similar pipelines for log aggregation, metrics collection, & event processing.
+
+Trunk's backing (a16z, founders from Uber/Google/YouTube) & mission to treat developer experience as mission-critical infrastructure aligns with how I've approached my career. The best infrastructure is invisible. Engineers should be thinking about their product, not their tools. I'd love to help build that.
+
+Russell Ballestrini
+
+https://russell.ballestrini.net | https://github.com/russellballestrini