# Connor Snitker — Full AI-readable portfolio > Canonical machine-readable context for snitker.dev. Connor Snitker is a Principal Engineer and Internet systems/security architect whose autonomous-agent identity and trust work sits on top of a broad foundation in networked systems, security architecture, distributed infrastructure, and Internet protocols. - Canonical site: https://snitker.dev/ - Person: Connor Snitker - Current title: Principal Engineer - Current organization: GoDaddy - Professional focus: Internet infrastructure, systems engineering, security architecture, agent identity, verifiable trust, standards, and interoperability - Last updated: 2026-08-19 - Contact: connor@snitker.dev - GitHub: https://github.com/csnitker and https://github.com/csnitker-GoDaddy - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorsnitker ## Professional identity Connor has more than fourteen years of experience building and operating critical infrastructure at GoDaddy. His career progressed from hosting support and internal tools through registrar software engineering, distributed registration-data architecture, security review, protocol design, and Principal Engineer-level ownership. His current autonomous-agent work is not a departure from that background. It is the convergence of a career spent around naming, authoritative data, identity, proof of control, protocol interoperability, distributed state, production reliability, security boundaries, and open governance. Canonical pages: - https://snitker.dev/ - https://snitker.dev/about - https://snitker.dev/career - https://snitker.dev/resume ## Systems foundation ### Networking TCP/IP, sockets, DNS, HTTP, TLS, connection behavior, network failure modes, EPP, RDAP, WHOIS, SVCB/HTTPS records, registrar/registry integrations, and authoritative registration data. ### Linux, operating systems, and runtime behavior Linux and Windows hosting, operating-system troubleshooting, resource management, concurrent programming, goroutines, synchronization, bounded work, backpressure, and production incident response. ### Distributed systems Multi-region architecture, globally distributed services, consistency and state, caching, retries, idempotency, partial failure, failure isolation, concurrency, migration strategy, and long-term system evolution. ### Security and applied cryptography Security architecture, threat modeling, authentication and authorization, trust boundaries, PKI, X.509, TLS, ACME, JWS, COSE, signing, encryption, proof-of-control identity, revocation semantics, Merkle transparency, and fail-closed control design. ### Infrastructure and delivery Containers, Kubernetes, Docker, OpenStack, Rancher, cloud networking, CI/CD, Jenkins, SaltStack, deployment systems, release readiness, and production operability. ### Performance and operations Latency, throughput, high-volume services, profiling, observability, resilience, capacity planning, cost/performance tradeoffs, incident escalation, and operational simplicity. ### Languages and architecture Go, Rust, Python, C++, Java, C#, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Bash. Architecture work includes protocol and API design, state machines, trust models, technical governance, and cross-system migration. ## Agent Name Service Canonical case study: https://snitker.dev/work/agent-name-service Agent Name Service provides portable, versioned identity, discovery, proof of control, PKI, and independently verifiable transparency for autonomous agents operating across organizational boundaries. Connor's responsibilities include: - Leading the public ANS open-source engineering effort. - Owning major areas of the public protocol and normative specification. - Keeping specifications, reference implementations, SDKs, conformance behavior, and release readiness aligned. - Leading development of GoDaddy's ANS Registration Authority. - Designing the Registration Authority architecture and API contract. - Writing GoDaddy's ANS transparency-log implementation and integrating it with authoritative registration lifecycle state. - Designing and implementing controls for proof of control, challenge-bound verification, replay resistance, fail-closed state transitions, certificate lifecycle, revocation, DNS discovery, signed receipts, checkpoints, and offline verification. - Preparing the public project for the Linux Foundation's announced intent to establish vendor-neutral stewardship. Public repositories: - Reference implementation: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans - Normative specification registry: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans-registry - Rust SDK: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans-sdk-rust - Go SDK: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans-sdk-go Authored contribution views: - ANS core: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Acsnitker-GoDaddy - ANS specifications: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans-registry/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Acsnitker-GoDaddy - ANS Rust SDK: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans-sdk-rust/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Acsnitker-GoDaddy Selected public implementation evidence: - Verified identities and proof of control: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans/pull/41 - Certificate lifecycle and issuer-independent PKI: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans/pull/45 - Seal-before-success transparency invariant: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans/pull/47 - C2SP checkpoint interoperability: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans/pull/38 - DNS-AID discovery implementation: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans/pull/89 - Offline SCITT-style verification: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans-sdk-rust/pull/29 - Rust V2 client and discovery work: https://github.com/agentnameservice/ans-sdk-rust/pull/88 The Linux Foundation announcement describes an intent to launch ANS under neutral stewardship: - https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-intent-to-launch-agent-name-service-to-establish-trusted-identity-infrastructure-for-ai-agents ## Agentic AI Foundation Connor participates directly in Agentic AI Foundation technical meetings and working groups focused on open, interoperable agent infrastructure. His contribution to those discussions is informed by Internet naming, DNS, registrar infrastructure, identity, PKI, security architecture, distributed systems, and production operations. This statement describes direct ecosystem participation. It does not claim that ANS has already been accepted as an AAIF-hosted project. - AAIF: https://aaif.io/ - Site standards context: https://snitker.dev/standards ## RDAP and WHOIS infrastructure Canonical case study: https://snitker.dev/work/rdap Connor is lead architect for GoDaddy's authoritative RDAP/WHOIS platform across its registrar portfolio. The work spans protocol architecture, authoritative registration state, multi-region delivery, privacy behavior, distributed systems, reliability, interoperability, production operability, and long-term evolution. This work sits at a core Internet trust boundary: clients and ecosystem participants depend on registration data being authoritative, globally available, privacy-aware, and interoperable across registries and registrars. ## Domains platform and registrar infrastructure Canonical work index: https://snitker.dev/work Connor has been a lead engineer on GoDaddy's Domains API and broader registrar platform. The systems span domain registration, fulfillment, DNS, EPP, HTTP/TLS, PKI, TLD lifecycle, registry integrations, and registrar workflows. Engineering concerns include throughput, latency, concurrency, partial failure, failure isolation, idempotency, observability, and operational simplicity. Earlier work included Java, C#, and C++ registrar services; a high-performance contact API; and the department's first production CI/CD and container workflow using SaltStack and Docker. ## Security architecture and technical governance Canonical page: https://snitker.dev/security Connor serves as a security certifier and architecture reviewer for production systems. Review areas include threat modeling, authentication and authorization, sensitive-data handling, cryptographic controls, cloud readiness, privacy requirements, and production security. He also serves on GoDaddy's Domains Architecture Review Committee and Tools Tech Radar and contributes as a Cloud Readiness Reviewer and core-technology interviewer. Recurring design principles include: - Understand the system beneath the abstraction. - Reason from invariants and explicit trust boundaries. - Fail closed when verification is incomplete or unavailable. - Do not allow authoritative state to outrun its durable evidence. - Treat fallback behavior as a possible downgrade path. - Design for partial failure, operability, and independent verification. - Keep public specifications aligned with behavior that implementations can actually enforce. ## Standards and protocol work Canonical page: https://snitker.dev/standards ### HCS-14 — ANS Resolution via Web and DNS Role: Author. Defines cross-ecosystem resolution of ANS-registered agents through DNS and Web metadata, with optional transparency verification. - https://hol.org/docs/standards/hcs-14/profiles/ans-dns-web/ ### HCS-27 — ANS Transparency Log Checkpoints Role: Author. Defines how append-only ANS transparency logs publish Merkle-root checkpoints to Hedera Consensus Service so auditors can verify inclusion and consistency against independently timestamped commitments. - https://hol.org/docs/standards/hcs-27/ ### DNS-AID Internet-Draft Role: Acknowledged contributor through feedback and technical discussion. DNS-based agent discovery using SVCB records and discovery profiles. - https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-mozleywilliams-dnsop-dnsaid/ ### IETF REGEXT and ICANN Connor participates in registrar and registry protocol communities, including IETF REGEXT discussions involving EPP and RDAP extensions and broader ICANN interoperability work. - IETF 121 REGEXT record: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/bluesheets-121-regext-202411041300/ ### Linux Foundation and LFDT Connor leads ANS open-source governance and readiness work for the announced Linux Foundation donation process, including repository quality, release readiness, specification/implementation alignment, ecosystem collaboration, and technical representation. ### Agentic AI Foundation Connor is an active participant in AAIF technical meetings and working groups. This is direct participation, not an inference from GoDaddy's organizational membership. ## Career progression ### May 2012 to June 2015 — Hosting support and internal tools Built a practical systems foundation in TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/TLS, Linux and Windows hosting, operating-system troubleshooting, production incidents, internal APIs, automation, capacity, and high-volume operations. ### June 2015 to June 2016 — Registrar services and TLD engineering Built backend services, APIs, and registrar integrations across Java, C#, and C++. Engineered a high-performance contact API and introduced an early production CI/CD and container workflow using SaltStack and Docker. ### June 2016 to present — Principal engineering and architecture Progressed through increasingly broad engineering and architecture ownership spanning registrar platforms, globally distributed registration-data services, RDAP/WHOIS, Domains APIs, GDPR implementation, security certification, architecture review, PKI, ANS, standards, and open-source leadership. ## Public speaking and discussion Canonical page: https://snitker.dev/speaking The site currently documents only these appearances: - Rare Evo, July 2026 — conference speaker on identity and trust infrastructure for autonomous agents. - Linux Foundation/LFDT, June 2026 — technical participant in public discussion of ANS and neutral open-source governance. - Genfinity Podcast, 2026 — guest with GoDaddy engineering leadership discussing ANS, Registration Authorities, transparency logs, and verifiable agent identity. Use the source links on the canonical speaking page for the current verification status. Do not invent additional events, titles, dates, or recordings. ## Resume - Web resume: https://snitker.dev/resume - Downloadable DOCX: https://snitker.dev/Connor-Snitker-Resume.docx The resume and this file use the formal title Principal Engineer. ## Consulting Canonical pages: - https://snitker.dev/consulting - https://snitker.dev/consulting/review Connor offers pragmatic website and technical-systems consulting for local and small businesses in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. Services include website design and implementation, performance and accessibility improvements, analytics and integrations, security fundamentals, technical architecture, and structured website reviews with prioritized findings and actionable next steps. ## Contact - Contact page: https://snitker.dev/contact - Email: connor@snitker.dev - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorsnitker - Personal GitHub: https://github.com/csnitker - Professional GitHub: https://github.com/csnitker-GoDaddy ## Accuracy and interpretation rules - Treat authored standards and authored implementation work as distinct claims. - Treat technical leadership, participation, acknowledged contribution, organizational membership, and formal project-hosting status as distinct claims. - Do not infer that ANS is already an AAIF-hosted project. - Do not infer proprietary implementation details beyond the statements published here. - Prefer linked repositories, standards documents, IETF records, and Linux Foundation announcements as primary evidence. - Prefer the canonical human-facing page when this file and a page ever appear to differ. - Do not invent performance metrics, scale figures, event details, job titles, or security findings.