Grew up in Bellevue. Still here.

Stephanie Hu was born and raised in Bellevue. Her parents emigrated from Shanghai in 1986 and built a small accounting practice in Lake Hills, on 148th Ave NE, they still run today. She went to Newport High School, then UW for a Computer Science degree, class of 2011.

For the next twelve years she worked in tech. Eight years as a Product Manager at Microsoft on the Office team. Four years at a Seattle climate-tech startup that was acquired in 2023. She is, she admits, the second-most-PowerPoint-fluent person currently serving in the Washington House.

She ran for the Bellevue School Board in 2019 and won. She served a full term, ran for state House in 2022, and won, narrowly. She kept the day job at the startup through both campaigns and was sworn in to the House in January 2023. She ran for reelection in 2024 by a much more comfortable margin.

Why she ran.

The honest reason: rent. The slightly longer reason: it became obvious that the deal the East Side had made with itself, work hard and your kids get a shot, was being quietly canceled. Almost nobody in elected office was acting like that was a serious problem.

The longer-longer reason is in the prose section above and in every speech she has ever given on the House floor.

At home.

Lives in the Lake Hills neighborhood with her husband and their three-year-old. A long-time, casually-suffering Mariners fan. A regular at the Tuesday farmers market in Crossroads when she's in district. The kind of person who orders boba with 30% sugar and no boba and stands by the choice.