Tell us about what you do at Dune?

I’m a product designer at Dune. More specifically, I joined with the rest of the smlXL team following the acquisition in January. At smlXL, we built some really powerful tools to help developers create real-time products using on-chain data. Now, I’m focused on figuring out how to integrate what we built at smlXL into Dune’s mission of making crypto data accessible — and the design questions that come with that have been super interesting. It’s an exciting time to be working on design at Dune!

Since we’re fully remote, my mornings are usually filled with brainstorming sessions with the design team on larger initiatives, syncing with engineering on a product we’re building, or conducting user research. Thankfully, we’re not overloaded with meetings, so I usually have plenty of time in the afternoons for focused design work.

How did you get into design? 

When I started college, I was convinced I wanted to be a psychologist (spoiler: I was very wrong). What I really enjoyed was learning about human behavior and figuring out how people think. That eventually led me to design — the perfect blend of human behavior, creativity, technical complexity, and business acumen. Once I found it, I was hooked.

I started my career at IBM’s iX design studio, consulting for large government agencies. That’s where I realized I was drawn to data-heavy, system design products and complex people problems. Eventually, this led me to Chainalysis, my first experience in the blockchain space. I was drawn to the scale and ambiguity of the problems they were solving, especially around using crowdsourced data to help investigators solve cases more efficiently. Funny enough, I worked closely with Hannah Curtis there — and now we get to work together again at Dune!

After Chainalysis, I joined smlXL as the founding product designer. The technical complexity of what we were building was equal parts intimidating and exciting, but enabling others to build products they wouldn’t have been able to create otherwise was incredibly rewarding. Now, being part of the Dune team and helping merge two amazing products has been an incredible experience.

What has been your most memorable Dune moment?

Definitely Dunecon in Thailand this past year. Before the smlXL team officially joined Dune, we flew to Bangkok to meet everyone and take part in Dunecon. There was this incredible energy as the two teams got to know each other while also pulling off an amazing event. I was blown away by how welcoming the Dune team was and how aligned we all were in terms of values — it made me feel really confident about joining. 

‍What does getting to the heart of it mean to you in practice?

At early-stage companies working on complex and ambitious problems, communication is everything. To me, getting to the heart of it means facing challenging problems head-on as a team — breaking them down together and working through them openly. What I really value about Dune is the shared sense of humility and curiosity — it makes those tough conversations easier and leads to better outcomes and stronger relationships.

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Connect with Alanna:‍

alannafischer.com
LinkedIn