Welcome to christa.town

Hi, I’m Christa Hartsock.

professional things

I’m currently the Associate Director of Engineering at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is a lot of words to say that I am the manager of a team of software engineers that helps keep EFF running.

I also work as a software engineer and UX researcher on a consulting basis through my company topographic LLC. I’m available for work on interesting projects that move toward a better world—if you have something you’d like to talk about working on together, let’s chat (email: christa at topographic.llc).

In the recent past I’ve worked as:

  • a backend software engineer at Meedan, a non-profit working globally to address misinformation
  • a consulting engineer at 18F, the US federal government’s technology and design consultancy before it was dismantled by DOGE
  • an engineering manager, software engineer, and engineering lead at Code for America, working to improve access to criminal record relief as part of Clear My Record, and help ease the burden of getting safety net benefits through the Integrated Benefits Initiative and GetCalFresh.

Prior to working with government, I’ve worked as an engineer at the agile consultancy Pivotal Labs (RIP) and at another small product consultancy (also RIP); as a studio manager at Peter Rose and Partners, an architecture and urban design firm; as a travel guide writer in Barcelona, on a variety of cleanup crews; in many ice cream shops; and a number of other things.

non-professional things

I live in San Francisco with my husband, Jim Fingal, and our rescue bully, Piglet.

I mostly spend my time running, biking, gardening, writing, making dumb music. You can listen to some of it by calling 419-452-4857 (no human will pick up, I promise, but you can leave a message if you want).

In the past co-founded and helped run Logic Magazine, on which I continue on the board, and helped start the San Francisco Review of Whatever. I still sometimes help with tech stuf (hardware, software, etc) at BFF.fm, a San Francisco community radio station based in the Mission. In some distant past, I spent a lot of time in the dank basement of college radio station WHRB, where I met Jim.

contact

I exist a few other places:

If you’d like to talk, shoot me a message via email. I’m often slow at responding, but do have the best intentions. Short, direct asks usually get a response more quickly.

Thanks for visiting; here is a gift:

Piglet, my grey and white bully mix dog, presenting her belly for a rub.