Meet Our Prodigies: Krystin Champagne

Meet Krystin Champagne - Lead, Education Specialist, Product. Krystin joined Prodigy in November 2018 and designs, develops and maintains educational content across Prodigy’s games. Check out our open positions here!

Hey Krystin! What led you to this career?

I always wanted to be a teacher growing up. That was the first and only career I could imagine doing. I had really great educators throughout my whole schooling and that left a big impression on me. After university, I went traveling and found myself in Australia and began working in human resources in the rail industry. After a few years I started leading development for senior leadership and early career professionals, and getting back into training reignited my urge to follow through with becoming a teacher. So I got my Masters and went very quickly from working in HR one Friday to having my own classroom on the Monday!

What attracted you to working at Prodigy?

I taught for about three-and-half years. Then the big switch came when I decided to relocate back to Canada to be closer to family. I had to make a decision about whether I would go back to the classroom here, or try something else education-focused. I had learned about game-based learning during my Masters, and Prodigy was even a game my professor used as a great example of how that can be deployed in the classroom. I learned more about their mission and then I found out they were hiring and needed registered teachers to help build out their math content. So this was a great way to stick to my values as an educator, even if I wasn’t in a classroom.

What makes working at Prodigy special?

Beyond the mission, it’s the people. I’m very fortunate that I get to work with so many different people. Everyone is so passionate and takes pride in what they do. You can’t fail to be inspired when everybody wants to do such good work. I’ve learned so much about how my role as an educator can transfer to a product-led environment.

What part of your job is most rewarding?

I’m not sure it’s one thing, but I keep coming back to the size of the impact we have. When I was in the classroom, it was amazing to see my students’ growth over a school year.  And that was just with 30 kids. At Prodigy it’s so much more. I work on a team where what we do impacts millions of students. It’s pretty rewarding to know the scale of it. Kudos to the customer support and social team for passing along all the great feedback, including how their kids now associate math with fun. That’s such a rewarding feeling.

What are you most excited about for the future?

I’m super excited about the growth and expansion of educational offerings in general. We’ve already gone from math to English, and there’s really no limit to where game-based learning can be applied. I can’t wait to see how we provide that expansion and support learners in all sorts of ways. We’ve had lots of conversations about how we can support teachers and make their lives easier, too. I have a very realistic perspective because I used to be a teacher, and I’m able to give feedback and tie it back to the ‘why.’ I feel like I can be the teachers’ voice internally because of my experience.

What advice would you give to someone considering joining Prodigy?

It’s not an ‘I’ company. It’s very team focused, even cross-functionally. We’re all guided by the mission, but everything is done collaboratively. You also need to be flexible because we’re a small company trying to move as quickly as possible and always find ways to do things better. You have to be able to demonstrate adaptability and agility. That’s critical to success here, but also what makes it so rewarding.

Interested in joining Krystin at Prodigy? Check out our open positions!