Application as Staff Product Designer — Growth (Onboarding)

Dear Hiring Team,

I am applying for the Staff Product Designer role on Kraken's Growth team. Designing onboarding for a regulated financial product — where compliance, conversion, and user trust collide — is the kind of systems-level challenge I have spent my career solving.

Regulated, high-stakes product design is what I know. I founded ShiftDigital, a GovTech startup that built workflow software for municipal government. For six years, I designed a product where every interaction had regulatory implications — data protection, procurement law, accessibility mandates. The onboarding challenge was similar to KYC: turn a complex legal process into an experience that feels simple without cutting corners. I also led design at ABS Safety, where the products — fall protection planning tools — had to meet strict safety regulations. In both cases, the design challenge was the same: make compliance invisible to the user while keeping it airtight for the auditor.

I operate at staff level. At ABS Safety, I led seven designers across three cross-functional teams while owning the most complex design problems myself. I built the design system, introduced product metrics, established a research repository, and restructured the team — all while staying hands-on in the product. Staff-level work means shaping the system, not just the screens. That includes design reviews, critique standards, and the frameworks that help other designers make better decisions.

Data-informed and prototype-driven. I introduced AI-augmented prototyping at ABS Safety through weekly sessions — high-fidelity interactive prototypes to test flows, states, and edge cases before engineering invests. I work with behavioral data, user research, and experimentation to validate design decisions. My frontend skills (React, Tailwind, JS) allow me to build prototypes that go beyond Figma when the question demands it.

I do not come from crypto, but I come from domains where complexity, regulation, and user trust are equally non-negotiable. The transfer is direct. I look forward to a conversation.

Best regards
David Latz