We use what we build: inside Kraken’s dogfooding culture
By Kraken Dogfooding Program Lead Andre Lezan Fernandes
At Kraken, using our own products is cultural infrastructure.
From their first days, every Krakenite reads Kraken Culture Explained, authored by co-founder Jesse Powell and foundational to how we operate. One of its core principles is clear:
Know Thyself. Know Thy Enemy. Know Thy Customer.
For us, knowing the customer requires more than research, surveys, or dashboards. It requires participation.
- We trade on Kraken.
- We custody assets on Kraken.
- We use our apps daily, with real funds, in live markets.
We rely on the same infrastructure our clients rely on.
That commitment shapes how we build.
Why proximity demands discipline
Teams that build products inevitably develop context. They understand tradeoffs, constraints, and implementation details. That expertise is essential but it also creates blind spots.
Friction becomes familiar. Workarounds become instinctive. Small imperfections become normalized.
Dogfooding is how we counter that effect.
At Kraken, it is not confined to QA or engineering. It is company-wide. Engineers, compliance professionals, marketers, finance specialists, legal experts, customer engagement teams; everyone actively uses our products and contributes feedback.
Because perspective is expertise.
- A marketer immediately feels whether the experience matches our promise
- A customer engagement specialist recognizes patterns of confusion early
- A compliance professional sees clarity gaps others may overlook.
Quality improves when diverse, informed perspectives intersect.
A program, not a slogan
Culture sets expectations. Structure makes them actionable.
Our Dogfooding Program encourages and rewards active participation across the company. Krakenites are expected to use our products deeply and report friction, edge cases, unclear flows, and improvement opportunities.
We’ve made reporting simple and low-friction:
- No need to identify the team that owns the product
- No need to draft a perfect bug report
- No need to judge whether an issue is “big enough” to be worth reporting
If it impacts the experience, it matters.
To reinforce that behavior, we recognize and reward our most engaged contributors. This isn’t gamification for optics; it’s reinforcement of accountability. The message is simple: if you build financial infrastructure for millions, you take responsibility for experiencing it yourself.
Excellence lives in the margins
Most meaningful quality improvements never originate from critical incidents. They come from subtle friction:
An extra tap. An ambiguous confirmation. Copy that is technically accurate but slightly unclear. A flow that works but doesn’t inspire confidence.
Individually, these are minor. Collectively, they define trust.
Clients come to Kraken to manage assets that matter deeply to them. Every interaction either strengthens that trust or quietly erodes it. Dogfooding allows us to detect and address these micro-signals before they scale.
It complements formal QA, security audits, and rigorous testing. It does not replace them. It adds lived accountability.
New-Krakenite dogfooding trading competitions
All new hires are invited to participate in a trading competition after their first quarter. Participants are provided with company-funded capital and compete in a controlled, low-risk environment designed to encourage learning, experimentation, and product exploration.
The objective isn’t speculation. It’s fluency.
By placing trades, managing positions, navigating advanced order types, transferring funds, and interacting with market volatility firsthand, Krakenites develop practical understanding of the tools our clients use every day.
This initiative serves multiple purposes:
- Deepens product literacy across every function
- Strengthens empathy for client decision-making
- Surfaces real-world friction points
- Builds confidence in navigating live markets
It is also, quite simply, an investment in our people. It’s our chance to encourage (and fund) their hands-on participation in the very markets they power.
Beyond trading competitions, we maintain a Dogfooding Leaderboard to highlight the Krakenites who contribute the most – and reward them, with prizes paid in crypto, monthly.
For prospective Krakenites, these initiatives reflect something important: you won’t build from a distance. You will engage directly with the platform, the markets, and the customer experience you help shape.
For builders and for clients
For prospective Krakenites, this culture matters.
If you join Kraken, you won’t build in abstraction. You will experience your own work. You will feel its strengths and its friction. You will have both the responsibility and the mechanism to improve it.
For our clients, this commitment is equally important.
Quality at Kraken is not owned by a single department. It is a distributed responsibility embedded in daily behavior. The same platform you depend on is the platform we depend on.
That alignment creates a higher standard.
We use what we build because accountability compounds.
And in an industry where trust is everything, that discipline is non-negotiable.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Kraken or its management.
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