David Recordon

David Recordon
Brian Solis · CC BY 2.0 · source
Name	David Recordon
Known for	Technology policy, open source, federal IT reform
Occupation	Technology executive, public servant

David Recordon is an American technology executive and public servant known for work on open standards, infrastructure, and technology policy. He has held roles in Silicon Valley, at prominent nonprofit organizations, and in multiple administrations in the United States Executive Branch. Recordon is noted for contributions to identity, authentication, infrastructure modernization, and digital service practices.

Early life and education

Recordon grew up during the rise of consumer internet culture and the expansion of web technologies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He participated in early online communities and grassroots technology projects that intersected with developments at institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Harvard University, and technology hubs like Silicon Valley. Influences included practitioners and organizations associated with open source software culture, including contributors to projects connected with Apache Software Foundation, Linux Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, and early social platforms such as LiveJournal and Myspace.

He pursued informal and formal training that connected him with developer communities around protocols and standards created by bodies like the Internet Engineering Task Force and the World Wide Web Consortium. His formative experiences aligned him with engineers and advocates who later worked at companies such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft, as well as nonprofit actors including Electronic Frontier Foundation, OpenID Foundation, and Creative Commons.

Career

Recordon’s early professional work bridged startup engineering, open standards advocacy, and platform architecture. He contributed to identity and authentication efforts related to protocols championed by organizations like the OpenID Foundation, the OAuth working group, and contributors to RFC specifications maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. His engineering career included roles that engaged with infrastructure and operations at companies and projects associated with large-scale web services such as Facebook, Google, and Yahoo!.

As an operator and engineer he worked on systems drawing from tooling and practices common in companies like Amazon (company), Netflix, and GitHub, integrating continuous deployment, configuration management, and observability approaches influenced by practitioners at Puppet and Chef. His background also intersected with developer communities around Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Python (programming language), and Go (programming language), while engaging with service orchestration influenced by technologies linked to Docker and Kubernetes.

Recordon expanded into leadership and advocacy roles that connected technical implementation with organizational strategy, collaborating with entities such as The White House technology teams, nonprofit organizations including The Aspen Institute and New America, and philanthropic initiatives focused on civic technology like Code for America.

White House and federal service

Recordon served in senior technical roles within the Executive Office, engaging with modernization programs, cloud adoption, and identity services. His work intersected with initiatives sponsored by the United States Digital Service, the Office of Management and Budget, and cross-agency modernization efforts influenced by legislation and policy frameworks involving the Federal Information Security Management Act and executive directives on IT modernization. He collaborated with officials and advisors tied to administrations that included staff from The White House and technology practitioners who transitioned between the public sector and companies such as Google and Amazon Web Services.

In federal positions he advised on identity, authentication, and secure access, working alongside teams responsible for implementing standards used across agencies, often coordinating with vendors and consortia like GSA-supported contractors, cloud providers linked to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, and open standards bodies including the Internet Engineering Task Force. His tenure involved partnerships with digital service groups modeled after the United Kingdom Government Digital Service and civil servants influenced by practices at 18F.

Technology and advocacy work

Beyond government, Recordon has been active in advocacy for open source, interoperable identity, and privacy-aware architectures. He participated in communities and conferences associated with DEF CON, Black Hat, RSA Conference, SXSW Interactive, and policy forums at Brookings Institution and Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has worked with nonprofit advocacy organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, and standards-focused groups including the OpenID Foundation and the Internet Society.

Recordon has been involved in advising startups, venture-backed initiatives, and philanthropic efforts tied to organizations like Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, and Knight Foundation, emphasizing transparency, security, and resilience in public-facing systems. His work has linked technical practice to policy debates involving major technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Apple.

Personal life

Recordon maintains ties with engineering and advocacy communities and often engages with practitioners from prominent institutions like Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and industry clusters in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Outside of professional activities, he participates in conference circuits and collaborates with civic technologists affiliated with groups such as Code for America and Open Source Initiative.

Category:American technology executives Category:People in information technology