David Steinke was born in Tabor, Czech Republic,  in 1979.

He studied European integration and international relations at Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, and at Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium. After completing an internship at the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations in New York, he joined the diplomatic service of the Czech Republic in 2003. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he first worked at the Department of Western Europe. Between 2005 and 2009, he worked as a press and political secretary at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Paris, France. After his return to Prague, he worked at the Security and Multilateral Section of the MFA. In the years 2011 to 2015, he was the first secretary at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in London, United Kingdom, where he was responsible for, among other things, public diplomacy. A decisive moment in his diplomatic career came when he started to work at the Department of Asia and the Pacific in 2015. He was completely captivated by Asian geopolitics and civilization. He gradually became the head of the Central, East Asia and the Pacific Division and, since 2019, the Deputy director general of the department. He dealt intensively mainly with China, but also with, for example, Afghanistan or Myanmar. In September 2022, he became Representative of the Czech Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei. David Steinke likes classical music and modern art, he collects paintings by contemporary Czech artists.