Product · Experience Design · AI

Felippe
Paiva Carneiro

I started monitoring carrier signals from a satellite control room in Rio. Eighteen years later, I'm designing the AI-powered platforms that help enterprises make sense of complex technology — simply.

Product Management CX Design AI Product Journey Mapping B2B SaaS Satellite Industry Arlington, VA

This Is Me

From Rio to orbit.
From orbit to product.

I'm Brazilian — born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, now living in Arlington, Virginia with my husband and two cats who run the household: Cosmo, the bold black cat, and Nala, a 15-year-old Brazilian Shorthair who has survived every career pivot and still looks unimpressed.

I started in satellite operations — literally monitoring transponders and RF signals in a control center. That foundation gave me something most PMs don't have: I understand the technology I'm designing for at a systems level. I know what's hard to build. I know what customers are really asking when they say "it doesn't work."

Over 18 years, I moved from operator to analyst, from sales to customer success, from success to product design. Each role was a layer. The curiosity never changed.

I see the whole system first — and that's exactly where the most interesting design problems hide.

Outside work: Muay Thai, swimming, dancing, and a deep love for exploring good bars and restaurants. I lead the LGBTQ+ ERG at my company and believe deeply that diverse teams build better products.

Felippe with Cosmo and Nala

Cosmo & Nala approve this portfolio.

What I Do

I frame problems.
I don't just design screens.

My positioning is hybrid: Product Manager by instinct, UX and design thinker by practice. I'm not the person who draws every pixel — I'm the person who makes sure we're drawing the right thing.

I map the journey. Then we test the riskiest assumption first.

My Product Design Process

Seven phases.
One clear direction.

I keep early work lightweight and testable. I get more detailed — and more precise — only after alignment. This is how I avoid building the wrong thing beautifully.

01
Define
Clarify the problem before we talk about solutions.
What I do
Stakeholder interviews, problem statements, jobs-to-be-done framing, assumption mapping
Artifacts
Problem brief, opportunity statement, assumption log
On track if
Everyone agrees on what we're solving — before disagreeing about how
02
Explore
Understand users, context, and the competitive landscape.
What I do
User interviews, journey mapping, persona workshops, desk research, analogous market review
Artifacts
Journey maps, personas, insight clusters, "How Might We" questions
On track if
We're surprising ourselves — not just confirming what we already believed
03
Validate
Test the riskiest assumptions before we commit to building.
What I do
Low-fi prototypes, concept testing, usability sessions, desirability checks
Artifacts
Test scripts, sketches, click-through prototypes, findings report
On track if
We've killed at least one bad idea — and have evidence for the one we're keeping
04
Refine & Document
Go deep only after direction is clear.
What I do
High-fidelity flows with design partner, PRD writing, edge case mapping, acceptance criteria
Artifacts
PRD, flow documentation, Figma handoff, JIRA epics and stories
On track if
Engineers can build without a daily meeting. Designers don't get ambiguous questions.
05
Implement
Stay close to the build — without being in the way.
What I do
Sprint ceremonies, design QA, tradeoff decisions, blocker removal, stakeholder updates
Artifacts
Sprint notes, decision log, updated specs
On track if
The team is moving, not waiting. Tradeoffs are documented, not forgotten.
06
Release
Ship with intention — not just a deployment.
What I do
Launch plan, internal enablement, release notes, comms, phased rollouts
Artifacts
Launch checklist, internal decks, customer-facing announcements
On track if
Every team knows what launched, why, and what to say to customers
07
Learn & Optimize
Close the loop — then open the next one.
What I do
Success metric review, user feedback synthesis, retros, iteration backlog grooming
Artifacts
Impact report, feedback summary, updated opportunity backlog
On track if
We're asking better questions than we had at the start of the cycle
Built by me · Live prototype
PDP Copilot

I built this prototype app to guide stakeholders through each phase of the process — from discovery notes to structured artifacts, in real time.

How I Collaborate

What I bring.
What I need.

With Designers

I come with context: user insights, problem framing, flows, and constraints. I don't dictate UI. I trust design craft — and I give designers room to be brilliant. I ask "why" before I suggest "what."

With Engineers

I write specs they can act on. I surface tradeoffs early. I don't vanish after handoff — I stay close enough to unblock, far enough to not hover. Technical context from my satellite background helps more than I expected.

With Stakeholders

I translate complexity into clarity. I bring data to opinion-heavy rooms. I push back with evidence, not attitude. And I make sure the customer's voice is always in the conversation.

Signals of Quality

What "good" looks like to me.

The first session works

If a new user gets lost in the first three minutes, the product has failed — regardless of how powerful the feature set is.

Less support = better design

Every ticket we don't receive is evidence that something is clear enough. I track support reduction as a product quality metric.

Customers don't ask "why"

When the logic of a product is intuitive, users just do the thing. If they're asking why, we've missed something in the flow.

Teams don't have to ask me

Good documentation means engineers and designers can make confident decisions without pinging me every hour. That's a feature, not a risk.

I can measure what shipped

If I can't point to data that tells me whether the thing worked, we didn't define success clearly enough at the start.

The edge case wasn't a surprise

I map edge cases in the spec phase — not in the bug report. Good product thinking means anticipating the user who doesn't behave as expected.

Selected Work

One mission.
Six expressions.

Streamlined Service Delivery — Satellite Made Simple

Every project below lives inside the same north star: complex satellite technology, delivered so simply that customers feel in control from day one.

▶ View Concept
01 · SES Marketplace
A place to buy satellite capacity — without a sales call.
↓ Click to read more
▶ View Concept
Problem

Enterprise buyers had to go through a lengthy manual quoting process. No self-serve, no transparency.

What I did

Led end-to-end design strategy: discovery interviews, journey mapping, flow definition, spec writing, and BSS/OSS integration partnership.

Outcome

First self-serve satellite marketplace at SES — reducing sales cycle friction and expanding the SMB customer base.

02 · SMP — Service Management Platform
One platform. Every service. All customers.
↓ Click to read more
▶ View Concept
Problem

Customers managed satellite services across fragmented tools. No single source of truth, high operational overhead.

What I did

Drove product design for the unified SMP: persona workshops, dashboard UX, JIRA epics and WSJF-style prioritization.

Outcome

Consolidated service management into one platform — informing $4M+ in platform investment decisions.

03 · Orbie — AI Layer
Making AI feel like a teammate, not a black box.
↓ Click to read more
▶ View Concept
Problem

Customers and internal teams were overwhelmed by alerts and tickets with no intelligent layer to surface what mattered.

What I did

Shaped vision and UX for the AI layer — intelligent support routing, workflow automation, proactive alerting via OpenAI APIs.

Outcome

~30% reduction in support ticket volume. A foundation for AI-powered interactions that earns trust before asking for attention.

04 · Intelsat CX Strategy
The company's first unified design language for customer experience.
↓ Click to read more
Problem

Each product line had its own CX approach — no shared framework, no common metrics, no organizational alignment.

What I did

Created journey maps and persona frameworks for every product line. Designed a CX curriculum. Ran heuristic analysis of the full digital platform landscape.

Outcome

First-ever unified CX Design strategy at Intelsat — codifying best practices and informing platform investment decisions.

05 · Unbox Experience
The product experience starts before you open the app.
↓ Click to read more
Problem

Hardware terminals arrived with no intentional onboarding design. The unboxing moment was a missed opportunity.

What I did

Extended digital design thinking to the physical experience — packaging, printed guides, QR-based activation flows, and first-run mobile experience.

Outcome

A premium, coherent first experience for SES hardware customers — reducing activation friction from purchase to live signal.

06 · Mobile App
Satellite management — in your pocket.
↓ Click to read more
▶ View Concept
Problem

Customers needed service visibility in the field — not at a desktop portal. Mobile was an afterthought.

What I did

Led mobile design from discovery through launch: field operator research, real-time monitoring flows, push notification strategy, iOS design partnership.

Outcome

A native mobile app that brought service management to the ground — improving responsiveness and customer confidence.

Human in the Loop

What I believe.
Why it matters.

I've watched technology change an entire industry from the inside. I was there when satellite broadband felt like magic. I watched it become infrastructure. I'm watching AI do the same thing — faster, and with higher stakes.

That arc taught me something: the technology is rarely the hard part. The hard part is what we do with the people on either end of it.

The best AI I've ever shipped is the kind users forgot was AI — because it just worked.
🤝
AI should reduce friction, not replace agency

I believe AI is most powerful when it gives people more control — not less. Automation that removes understanding is not progress. It's dependency.

🔍
Transparency is a design principle

When a system makes a decision that affects someone, that person deserves to understand why. I design for explainability — not as a legal checkbox, but as basic respect.

🌍
Technology has always been political

Who gets access, who gets designed for, whose problems get solved first — these are not neutral choices. People building AI tools have an obligation to sit with that discomfort.

🧠
Human judgment is not a bug to be patched

I'm skeptical of systems that optimize away human decision-making. Intuition, empathy, and context are exactly what AI needs more of, not less.

🏳️‍🌈
Diverse teams build safer AI

I've led an LGBTQ+ ERG because I believe representation changes what gets built. Teams that look like the world they're designing for build products that work for it.

🛰️
I've seen what happens when infrastructure fails

Satellites go down. People in remote areas lose connectivity. Reliability isn't an engineering metric — it's a human one. I carry that weight into every product I build.

Working With Me

What to expect.

My communication style
  • Adaptable — I meet people where they are, whether that's a message, a thread, or a quick call
  • I write things down — decisions, reasoning, tradeoffs
  • I give direct feedback, always with the work's goal in mind
  • I default to transparency, even when the news isn't great
  • I'm warmer than most PMs. That's intentional.
My rituals
  • Fewer meetings, better meetings — I protect everyone's calendar and only bring people together when collaboration actually requires it
  • Retros that actually change something
  • A shared decision log — so context doesn't live in someone's head
  • Regular customer touchpoints baked into the cycle, not bolted on
  • Celebrating small ships, not just big launches
What I bring
  • Deep domain expertise with genuine user empathy
  • A bias toward clarity in ambiguous situations
  • Cross-functional fluency: I speak sales, tech, design, and exec
  • Calm under pressure. I've been in satellite outage rooms.
What I need
  • Access to real users — not just internal proxies
  • A team that challenges ideas, not just executes them
  • Space to do discovery before jumping to solutions
  • Trust that slowing down at the start means moving faster later

Let's Talk

Good conversations lead to great things.

Whether you're building something exciting, thinking through a product challenge, or just want to connect — I'm always up for a good conversation. No agenda needed.

Say hello LinkedIn
PDP Copilot · Interactive Tool