Szeps is the son of actor Henri Szeps, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi occupation of Europe.^[3] His mother is Catholic.^[3]

He attended Fort Street High School and the University of Technology, Sydney.^[4][5] After graduating from college, he moved to New York to begin a career in broadcasting.^[3]

Szeps won Australia's highest radio prize for his long-running satirical comedy sketches on Sydney radio.^{[citation needed]} He described comedian David Letterman and journalist Christopher Hitchens as early influences.^[3]

He changed his last name from "Szeps" to "Zepps" in the United States to avoid pronunciation confusion.^[1]

Szeps was the host and co-executive producer of Australian Idol Backstage, the behind-the-scenes component of the namesake television series.^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in 2008, Szeps was the host and creative producer of the Science Channel's Brink, a news-style TV series which examined breakthroughs in technology and discovery.^[6][7] The series ended the following year. Later, he was anchor and correspondent on CBS News Productions' Peabody-winning Channel One News.^[8]

In 2012, Szeps was a founding host for HuffPost Live.^[2] Szeps was also a regular correspondent with Al Roker on the NBC's Today.^{[citation needed]}

He has also appeared on the panel and co-hosted The Project on Network Ten in Australia^[9] and the ABC News program Weekend Breakfast.

In January 2019, ABC announced that Szeps would replace Andrew Geoghegan as host of Weekend Breakfast.^[10]

Over the Summer 2016/2017 period Szeps hosted the National Evenings Show on ABC Local Radio across Australia.^[11]

Szeps hosts a podcast tackling societal issues, Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps.^[12]

At the end of 2021, Szeps became the presenter of ABC Radio Sydney's three-hour long Afternoons Program.^[13][14] In 2023, he announced that he would be leaving the ABC to work on his podcast and start a Youtube channel.^[15] Szeps made his resignation announcement live on air, saying about his work with the ABC that "The penalties for speaking bluntly...are very high." He said that he was a misfit there, that "I'm a child of refugees, but I'm a white Australian. I'm a gay guy, but I hate Mardi Gras. ...I'm an ABC presenter but I don't like kale."^[16]

Szeps was cast as the voice of "Olly the Kookaburra", one of three mascots in the Sydney Summer Olympics.^[4] After leaving university in 2000, Szeps was hired as a script assistant on BackBerner, a comedy television series.^[4] He also worked in the production of 2SM and 2GB, two Australian radio stations.^[4] In 2003, Szeps was hired by Mike Carlton of 2UE, a commercial radio station in Sydney. Szeps developed a radio soliloquy for 2UE called "John Howard's Diary", in which he made a weekly impersonation of the Australian Prime Minister's thoughts on the past week's events.^[4] Szeps said to The Sydney Morning Herald in 2003 that "if John Howard wasn't in power, it's entirely possible my life would be going in a completely different direction".^[4] After John Howard was defeated in the 2007 Australian federal election, Szeps' radio spoof became "Kevin Rudd's Diary", a satire of the new Prime Minister in the same format.^[1] Szeps was the creator of Never Never Newsreel, a weekly syndicated satirical radio sketch that ran until June 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Szeps was married in 2014, in New Hampshire, to American social media marketing specialist Sean Joseph Gallerani, now known as Sean Szeps.^[17] The couple live in Sydney, Australia with their twins,^[18] Stella and Cooper, who were born of a relative of Sean via a commercial surrogacy arrangement in Minneapolis, Josh being the father.^[19]

Szeps describes himself as an agnostic.^[3]

• Josh Szeps ABC Profile
• Josh Zepps Profile at the Science Channel
• Josh Szeps on Twitter