After graduation, DeCandido worked as editor at several publishing companies, most notably for the various book packaging companies owned by
Byron Preiss. Along with John S. Drew, in the 1990s he co-produced a
public-access television cable TV show in Manhattan about science fiction called
The Chronic Rift, which he also co-hosted. DeCandido and Drew and others revived the show as a podcast in 2008. DeCandido also used to host his own monthly podcast,
Dead Kitchen Radio, on hiatus as of February 2019. While DeCandido spent much of the early part of his writing career penning
Star Trek fiction, he has written tie-ins for other popular sci-fi and fantasy series as well, such as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Doctor Who,
Supernatural,
Stargate SG-1,
Sleepy Hollow,
Farscape, and
Leverage as well as comic books (
Spider-Man,
X-Men), movies (
Cars,
Serenity,
Alien), role-playing games (
Dungeons & Dragons), and video games (
World of Warcraft,
StarCraft,
Command & Conquer,
Resident Evil). He has also written fiction in universes of his own creation:
Dragon Precinct and its sequels, a high-fantasy police procedural; urban fantasy short stories set in
Key West about a weirdness magnet named Cassie Zukav, who learns she is a
Dís; the Adventures of Bram Gold, urban fantasy novels set in
the Bronx; Super City Cops, novels, novellas, and short stories featuring cops in a city filled with superheroes; and
Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD, an urban fantasy series that debuted in 2025 from the
Weird Tales Presents imprint of
Blackstone Publishing. He has also edited or co-edited various anthologies, including
OtherWere (with
Laura Anne Gilman),
Urban Nightmares (with
Josepha Sherman),
Imaginings,
Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups (with
Jonathan Maberry),
The Four ???? of the Apocalypse (with Wrenn Simms), the
Doctor Who collection
Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership, and the
Star Trek anthologies
New Frontier: No Limits (with
Peter David),
Tales of the Dominion War, and ''Tales from the Captain's Table
. Among his other editorial accomplishments are editing the Marvel novels published by Berkley Books from 1994-2000 and the Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers'' series of monthly eBook novellas from 2000-2008. He continues to do freelance editorial work for personal clients. In 2009, DeCandido was named Grandmaster by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. In 2026, he was awarded the
Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction, also known as the Skylark. He has written rewatches for
Reactor Magazine (formerly Tor.com) since 2011, including
Star Trek: The Original Series,
Star Trek: The Next Generation,
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,
Star Trek: Voyager,
Star Trek: Enterprise,
Stargate,
Batman 1966, "4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch," about every live-action superhero movie based on a comic book, and
Babylon 5. DeCandido also writes reviews and commentary for Reactor, including reviews of many of TV adaptions of comic books and of the new
Star Trek shows
Star Trek: Discovery,
Star Trek: Picard,
Star Trek: Lower Decks,
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
Star Trek: Prodigy,
Short Treks,
Section 31, and
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. ==Personal life==