Chris Given

Chris Given is Deputy Secretary for Technology and Innovation at the California Government Operations Agency (GovOps), where he leads state technology and digital services strategy for an agency spanning more than 23,000 employees and 13 departments. A product-minded technologist with roughly a decade of continuous federal service, Given brings to California a rare combination of hands-on engineering experience, cross-agency policy expertise, and a deep commitment to building government services that are accessible, trustworthy, and equitable. His appointment places him at the center of California’s public AI infrastructure effort, directly overseeing the state’s implementation of CalCompute—the public computing cluster established by SB 53 to democratize access to the compute resources needed for AI research, safety testing, and innovation.

Before joining GovOps, Given served as product lead for IRS Direct File, the landmark program that enabled Americans to file federal taxes online directly with the IRS for the first time. Working as part of a joint team drawn from the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) and the IRS, Given and co-lead Merici Vinton shepherded the initiative through years of policy uncertainty, building an early proof-of-concept prototype with a team of three designers and four engineers in just eight weeks. When the program was formally green-lit following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Given led the full product and engineering team that delivered the 2024 pilot—bringing Direct File to taxpayers in 12 states at a development cost of $24.6 million. More than 500,000 taxpayers used Direct File before the Trump administration terminated the program in 2025; the team subsequently open-sourced the codebase so that state revenue agencies and other governments could build on their work.

Given’s path to Direct File was itself the product of a decade-long odyssey through federal digital service. Embedded at USDS, he completed tours of duty across ten federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Administration for Children and Families, as well as stints supporting the states of Connecticut, Illinois, and the District of Columbia. During the rollout of the American Rescue Plan in 2021, he focused on Child Tax Credit provisions at the IRS and represented USDS in the early Direct File interagency policy process, while also volunteering with the United Way’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program to deepen his practical tax knowledge. This breadth of cross-agency experience—navigating policy, engineering, and user research simultaneously across some of the federal government’s most complex benefit and revenue systems—is a direct precursor to the cross-departmental technology leadership his GovOps role demands.

Alongside his government service, Given has taught at the Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, reflecting a commitment to building the next generation of public-interest technologists. He is a graduate of Bard College.

Chris Given is based in Sacramento, California. As Deputy Secretary for Technology and Innovation, he is the senior GovOps official responsible for state IT modernization, digital services strategy, and the CalCompute initiative—California’s effort to build shared, public AI infrastructure that expands access to compute for researchers, startups, and public institutions across the state.