Scardino was born in 1949 in New York City, New York. His parents were jazz musicians and encouraged his desire to be a performer. From his youth to early adulthood, he played in various professional theaters in New York and was eventually cast in daytime dramas Guiding Light and All My Children. While acting in daytime drama, he developed a career as a theater director in New York. He credits one of his directors on Guiding Light, Walter Gorman, with teaching him about acting for the screen and sharing what he knew about directing. His first directing credit in television would come in 1987 on another daytime drama, Another World.
Scardino has directed a wide variety of episodic television, TV movies and feature films. In TV, he has directed episodes of Another World, The Days and Nights of Molly, Public Morals, Pearl, Cosby, Tracey Takes On..., The West Wing, 30 Rock, Law & Order, 2 Broke Girls and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. His feature film credits include Me and Veronica (1992), Advice from a Caterpillar (1999) and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013). His list of TV Movie credits include Browsers (2013), Sober Companion (2014), Scary Shit (2014), Mission Control (2014), The Kicker (2016) and I Mom So Hard (2019).
Scardino has been nominated for several DGA awards for his directing efforts on television shows Tracey Takes On… in 1993 and 1998 and 30 Rock in 2008 and 2010. He was also nominated for Emmys for both shows: for Tracey Takes On… in 1993 and 1998 and 30 Rock in 2010.