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%	LETTER INFORMATION
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% The company being applied to
\recipient
  {}
  {Freedom of the Press Foundation\\49 Flatbush Avenue \#1017\\Brooklyn, NY 11217\\U.S.A.}

% The date on the letter, default is the date of compilation
\letterdate{\today}

% How the letter is opened
\letteropening{To the Infrastructure Team,}

\letterbody{
    My name is Ethan Paul and I am interested in working in a position on the Infrastructure 
    Team at the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). In my eleven years of professional 
    experience I have worked in a wide variety of positions including as a Tier I support 
    technician for a legacy institution that supported thousands of clients, a systems 
    architect and administrator for an internet service provider, and a single-member IT team 
    for a small startup company. Throughout my career what I have enjoyed most from my work 
    are the opportunities to meet people, understand their technical challenges, and work to 
    build and deliver solutions that help them to be more successful in their jobs. While I 
    enjoy solving technical problems, it is the relationship between technology and people 
    that has always been of greatest interest to me.
    \\\\
    Projects like SecureDrop and the Press Freedom Tracker exist at this intersection where 
    technology and people collide. This intersection- ideally beneficial but too often 
    confounding or exploitative- is already quite difficult to navigate for many people and, as 
    technology continues to evolve, will only demand ever higher amounts of technical knowledge 
    to properly manage. This makes the work of specialist groups all the more important: 
    organizations like the FPF provide the essential service of helping people better 
    participate in our continually digitizing world by making technology and technical resources 
    more accessible and navigable. The FPF and similar organizations also stand in stark
    contrast to companies that ostensibly provide the same service, but only for their own
    benefit rather than that of their clients, customers, and community. The commitment to
    providing enhanced access to technological resources for the principal benefit of its 
    clients and community is what appeals most to me about joining the team at FPF.
    \\\\
    One of the most interesting and fulfilling projects I have had the opportunity to work on
    during my time in the technology sector was the implementation and support of a network
    monitoring system for my company's wireless network infrastructure. This project allowed me
    to work with and learn from experts in different fields as I coordinated the system's design
    across several engineering departments while continually working with the Network Operations 
    teams to understand how they needed the system to function in daily use. While the technical 
    work for the project was interesting, by far the most engaging part of the process was 
    understanding the needs and limitations of the people using the system so that I could work 
    to improve its utility. This exposure to other teams and specialties helped me to develop a 
    better understanding of the business, build a plethora of diverse relationships, and gave me 
    more opportunities to expand my technical knowledge than I ever would have found working 
    alone.
    \\\\
    After eight years in the technology sector I am fortunate enough to have the flexibility to 
    shift my career path away from technology for technology's sake and towards technology for 
    the sake of people. Working in an environment where I can make contributions to complex 
    technical systems, learn from experts in a diverse set of fields, and have the 
    confidence that my work helps to fight inequality and improve free access to information is 
    a dream opportunity. I have admired the FPF's work from afar for long enough that the 
    prospect of working with the FPF feels almost surreal. And yet the Infrastructure Team 
    combines two elements that are very important to me: improving people's relationship with 
    their technology and promoting digital freedom for people everywhere. For all these reasons 
    I hope you will consider me for a position and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
}
