Cado Security - Foundations
Designing the future of cloud security and incident response.
Overview
Cado Security is a cloud forensics and incident response platform. I joined as the sole product designer at a pivotal stage: While the product had found early traction, the company lacked meaningful design capability at a time when it needed the design foundations to support rapid growth, investor expections and exit potential.
I was tasked with:
- Establishing a lean, flexible design function that could scale without slowing the company.
- Driving product velocity, reliability and quality through a repeatable design process.
- Embedding an effective, participatory design culture within the product and engineering teams.
During my time, Cado doubled year-on-year revenue, secured additional funding in challenging market conditions, and was ultimately acquired by Darktrace where I now lead design for Cloud and Email.
Alex's impact on our cloud security enterprise software was immense.
Not only did he lead the design from startup through to maturity, but his keen understanding of users and dedication to improving quality were evident in every iteration.
His dual expertise in design and code made him a powerful asset to our team.
Objectives
Velocity - Customers reliably cited Cado’s responsiveness to support and feature requests as a key factor driving purchase decisions. That said, delivery speed varied between teams. My goal was to raise the floor as much as the ceiling and achieve predictable delivery across the company.
Reliability - Velocity meant little without reliability. I aimed to reduce the number of support tickets raised due to unforced design errors, as well as support customers in resolving technical issues independently through improved in-app error handling and documentation.
Adaptability - As a pioneer in cloud forensics, Cado had already pivoted from forensics and managed service providers to enterprise cloud security. My role was to ensure the product could continue adapting to new market demands, customer profiles and feature lines, while remaining a coherent whole.
Challenges
One-Man Band - I was the only designer at the company, and had to be resourceful in gathering the people and tools I needed in order to deliver meaningful results.
Minimal Process - There was no dedicated QA or design review step, and introducing one wasn’t viable. Slowing the pace of delivery was unacceptable and design work had to arrive in code review good by default.
Credibility Gap - Previous hires and initiatives had mixed results. I had some credibility from earlier engineering contracts, but I had work to do in order to demonstrate the value of a more serious design function.
Research Constraints - External users were sophisticated, with very limited availability. I was consistently supported by internal threat researchers, along with the product, support and sales engineering functions in gathering customer insights.
Should Designers Code? - Despite new responsibilities I remained one of the more experienced frontend engineers, and would continue to contribute code to the component library and debug complex UI issues.
Alex has been instrumental in advancing design at Cado. He works tirelessly to lay foundations for the team, engaging with internal and external stakeholders to ensure we’re tackling the meaningful problems.
He also, without hesitation, jumps in with the team to help bring the designs to life, offering not only his design but also technical skills to accelerate the team. His aptitude to lead not only with his decisions, but also example, is a rare combination.
Strategy
Ruthless Simplification - I inherited three colour palettes, two UI kits, multiple styling libraries, and an information architecture that had grown without overarching strategy. I had to prune every layer of design and frontend activity to the bare essentials in order to minimise variability, decision fatigue and maintenance costs.
Given the resources available, we had to be disciplined in what we carried with us and maintain a single direction of travel.
Developer Experience - Design had to integrate with the existing engineering workflow, so we operated like a developer experience function in order to support adoption.
Tooling choices were refined around existing favourites such as Tailwind, Radix and Storybook, with design featuring as a supporting service within issue-tracking, code review and documentation. I helped define and track engineering OKRs alongside senior engineers to ensure design changes translated into delivery, and to keep an eye on developments.
Scaling Design - With no design team to lean on I relied on documentation, patterns, clear examples of best practice and constant communication across engineering channels to embed design within day-to-day work.
I identified engineers who wanted to strengthen their design skills and supported them in surfacing and resolving design challenges within their areas of focus. Kat, Marie, Jake and Zoe in particular went well beyond their roles to support me in this fashion.
Alex has been a huge help in supporting our work on accessibility, making WCAG 2.2 easy to work towards and saving tons of time and nerves for the devs.
He truly listens to what you need and is happy to do whatever helps. He is just very, very easy to work with and the fact that he's very smart doesn't hurt either, the job is properly done.
Outcomes
Product Engineering - Established a lightweight, repeatable design process that engaged engineers across all three teams to reason about and contribute to design initiatives, from core information architecture to local UI challenges.
This enabled us to ship predictably, reliably improve the customer experience and quickly absorb shifts in product strategy. Team members consistently worked beyond their roles and responsibilities to solve design challenges.
Reduced Design-Related Support Burden - Standardised patterns and practices dramatically reduced the number and severity of design-related support tickets, shifting the focus from reactive bug fixes and error handling to proactive, future-oriented work such as a pivot to security operations.
Bottom Line - Contributed directly to doubling revenue year-on-year, fundraising in a challenging market and positioning the product for a successful acquisition by Darktrace.
Alex has led the transformation of the Cado platform from one of deep design debt to a design-forward way of thinking where we deliver meaningful improvements on a continual basis - much to the delight of internal and customer stakeholders.
Alex's unique blend of technical expertise, design acumen, understanding of process, and commitment to design culture has been absolutely central to that transformation, and I feel fortunate to witness and experience that.
Retrospective
Overcommunication - There is no such thing. At the outset I was overly cautious of saturating communication channels, treating it as progressive disclosure for the design function. In reality management across teams and functions required constant, multimodal communication.
Emotion Scales - This contract left me more mindful of emotional tone. Not that I was ever one for defeatism, but I underestimated how impactful sincere, consistent optimism could be on others. I feel it’s undersold in management literature. By the end I found myself thinking much more deliberately about mood and energy, both mine and others’, alongside process and systems.
Leading by Example - Not every problem is best solved by acting on the instance in front of you; often the most impactful move is around process, tooling and systems. Yet sometimes, particularly in engineering-heavy cultures, the most leveraged action you can take is to solve the problem in front of you in the most excellent, visible fashion you can, and set a standard.