I'm Stacey Eliuk. I live in New York City, where I join technology with public good.

Before transitioning to a career in engineering, I spent a decade working alongside some of New York State's most progressive lawmakers, advocating on key issues like affordable housing, transportation equity and environmental justice. While in government, I witnessed firsthand how innovation could transform our world—from how we travel and move, to how industries evolve, and how we define human rights, justice, and freedom. Emerging technologies have the power to rewrite the rulebook to better reflect equity in opportunity or, conversely, to widen the divide and embolden corruption. I wanted to be a part of how that book was written.

In 2019, I took a pivotal step towards that by attending the Grace Hopper Program's immersive software engineering bootcamp. Upon graduation, I spent six months as a teaching fellow with its Web Development Fellowship — a free full-stack education initiative for underserved New Yorkers through the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline - before being hired as one of the first ten engineers at VEED.IO, an online video editing platform.

At VEED, I played a key role in scaling our stack and systems, contributing to product and feature development, and aiding our transition from a monorepo to a microservices-based architecture. I also collaborated with leadership to develop models for recruitment, workflow, performance, pay, and values, ensuring VEED's growth aligned with a commitment to equity, retention, and feedback-driven improvement. For more insights on this growth, you can read my publication on Medium titled "A Tribe Called VEED."

With four years in the industry under my belt, I decided it was time to strike out on my own and more directly work to use technology for the benefit of public good. In December of 2023, I met with the team of Legislative Llama to discuss building a new kind of digital advocacy platform using AI. Imagine - instead of thousands of people sending the same message over and over to their elected officials, we would create thousands of messages, unique to each user, delivering authentic, powerfully customizable content reflecting individual experiences and concerns.

Through this work, we not only enhanced the impact of each action but also fostered a more personal and engaging form of advocacy, ensuring that every voice is heard and represented and building habits around gamified actions. In April, we were recognized for our work by Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and awarded $12,500 as a semifinalist of their Global Policy Challenge.

While challenges loom, we have the opportunity to harness these rapidly evolving tools for the betterment of our world's future. We must empower an industry that is values-driven, informed and diverse. As Whitman said, "the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse." What will our verse be?

Experience

Legislative Llama

Legislative Llama

Technical Co-Founder & Chief Architect

As the founding engineer of this non-profit digital advocacy platform, I drove Legislative Llama's technical & strategic vision, designing a scalable postgres database hosted through Supabase and developing the platform with Next.js. Our work was recently recognized by Columbia University's School for International & Public Affairs, when the Legislative Llama team was named a Global Policy Challenge Finalist and awarded $12,500.

VEED.IO

VEED.IO

Software Engineer

At VEED, I was brought on as one of the first ten Software Engineers, and helped grow the company to become a first-class video editing platform backed by Sequoia Capital. My portfolio focused on VEED's recorder tool and subtitle generation, where I played a leading role in improving performance, reliability and growth.

Fullstack Academy

Fullstack Academy

Teaching Fellow, Web Development Fellowship

I was hired by the Fullstack team immediately after graduation during the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic in a highly competitive environment. There, I provided mentorship for over students who were part of Fullstack's Web Development Fellowship program, an immersive coding scholarship program funded through the City of New York's Tech Talent Pipeline.

Office of the Public Advocate James for NY

Office of the Public Advocate James for NY

Queens Regional Director & Deputy Field Director

As the Queens Regional Representative to now-NYS Attorney General Letitia James, my role focused on expand the Public Advocates' impact and presence to key constituencies. Further, as Deputy Field Director on her Attorney General campaign, we won by fifteen points, finishing particularly strong in Queens, my home turf, at 55% of the vote.

PrimedOutNYC

As the founder of PrimedOutNYC, I organized local residents, community based organizations and grassroots groups against the multi-billion dollar plan to bring Amazon to Queens. More on the group's position can be read in the groups original petition in the dropout below, which I authored.

Queens County Young Democrats

In February of 2016 I was elected the first female president of the Queens County Young Democrats, the official youth arm of the Queens County Democratic Party. During my two-year tenure, the organization grew to include nine active caucuses, raised over $50,000 to support organizational efforts, knocked on ten thousand+ doors for Democratic candidates, and hosted over fifty events.

Museum of Tolerance

Museum of Tolerance

Program Manager

A part of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, my work at the Museum of Tolerance focused on fulfilling grants from the City and State of New York administering implicit bias training to law enforcement professionals, as well as overseeing daily operations at the Museum for students, educators and other guests.