This series spotlights some of the talented individuals on our amazing team. Interested in joining them? Check out our open positions here!
Meet Brian, Prodigy’s Director of Game Engineering! Brian joined Prodigy in 2019 shortly after moving to North America from the UK. Today, Brian leads the execution of the engineering strategy for Prodigy’s award-winning math game.
I’m from Ireland originally, and went to England for university. I spent six years in the tech industry there, but needed a role that was more career focused for me. I knew there were many more opportunities in North America. So, without any real plan or contacts, I moved to Toronto! Prodigy came on my radar, and with my experience in games and with their tech stack it became a great fit.
Even though it’s been six years, each year has felt very different. The growth of the company and the growth of my career have pretty much aligned. But the main attraction is that I get to work with a group of talented individuals every day. I’m able to express myself and learn from everyone across the company - regardless of seniority. Everyone is very open and brings their own strengths, which means you never stop learning.
Growth Mindset is one of the major reasons why I’ve remained at Prodigy. Throughout my career I’ve always been interested in self-growth. I didn’t always get that at other companies, where there was less interest in skill development. That left me frustrated, but at Prodigy it’s been a very different experience. I’ve worked with people in different roles and I’ve felt enabled and empowered to stretch myself, especially as I moved into a leadership role and studied managerial theory to make sure I was getting the best from myself and my team members. I really enjoy the leadership element, and coaching and mentoring others to get the best from themselves.
So, I have worked at other big game companies - including on one game which was one of the top 10 grossing games at that time. I was at a big game development shop, and it was there that I saw a gradual cultural shift where we went from “how are we going to make a feature that users enjoy” to “how are we going to make a feature that will make us $10 million.” That’s a big shift of thinking where the user experience comes second. At Prodigy, our work is all about how we keep students engaged - but that engagement is tied to answering more math questions. So we’re always striving to improve the user experience, which leads to more learning - and then naturally transfers to business results too.
I think we have a really strong plan and vision for our game team. I believe we have that cohesiveness and a ‘glue’ that holds our strategy together with the goal of making our game as good as it can possibly be. We have a much higher maturity in terms of game design than we’ve ever had, and that’s a very exciting foundation to build off.
