About
👋 Hi, I’m Christina!
I’ve come here to chew bubblegum and write about automating the boring parts of engineering. And I’m all out of bubblegum.
Always chasing that elusive ideal known as "technical leadership".
About Me
Hi! I’m Christina Branson, a senior software engineer with over a decade of experience spanning multiple industries, including healthcare data, advertising tech, and academia. I care deeply about building elegant, scalable systems and making the day-to-day life of engineers suck less through better tools and workflows.
I made my first website at around 11 years old, back in the golden era of Geocities and Angelfire. My first site proudly featured a Smash Mouth MIDI that couldn’t be turned off (and no, it wasn’t that Smash Mouth song). Aesthetically questionable? Absolutely. But it sparked a love for turning ideas into interactive, tangible things through code.
I studied math in undergrad, where I took a required programming course and instantly realized I had an aptitude for it. That led me to grad school in Atmospheric Science (think: weather modeling and data), where I got even deeper into programming through simulations and research tools. I eventually realized that pure research wasn’t my path, but building things definitely was.
Links
You can find me on Github, LinkedIn, and Substack!
Career Highlights
At HealthVerity, a healthcare data company in Philadelphia, I led efforts to make BigAssDataâ„¢ (not trademarked, but probably should be) more accessible and discoverable across many use cases, such as helping clients build patient cohorts for clinical trials and research. I was promoted to Tech Lead and later to Staff Senior Engineer, where I worked on everything from hands-on coding to introducing AI/LLM tooling that improved both product experience and DevEx for our team.
I now work in ad tech at Vistar Media as a senior engineer on the Traditional OOH (Out-of-Home) Planning team. I’m excited to bring what I’ve learned especially around developer tooling and AI-enhanced onboarding) to a whole new set of problems and teammates. It’s an exciting time to be an engineer with all the new tools at our fingertips.
Outside of Work
When I’m not working my 9-to-5, I’m often:
Participating in coding challenges and hackathons
Building side projects for fun (and sometimes just to scratch an itch)
Reading tech books and writing about the good ones
Experimenting with AI tools and automations to improve developer workflows
Oh, I have a toddler, too!
About This Blog
This blog is where I hope to document:
AI-enabled workflows that help engineers and tech leads work smarter
DevEx strategies to make engineering less painful and more joyful
AI-assisted onboarding, mentorship, and growth
Side projects, hacks, and experiments
Occasional book reviews (technical and otherwise)