GiveExamples.com is the personal technical blog of Saeed Afshari.
Hi, I’m Saeed Afshari, a Staff Software Engineer, software architect, and engineering consultant based in Munich, Germany.
I have more than 15 years of experience designing, building, and operating production software systems, ranging from financial and telecommunications platforms to cloud-native distributed systems and enterprise security infrastructure.
My work sits at the intersection of software architecture, distributed systems, platform engineering, reliability, and security. I enjoy working on problems where there is no obvious answer: systems that have become difficult to scale, architectures that need to evolve, reliability issues that cross team boundaries, or technical decisions that will influence an organization for years.
I created GiveExamples.com to write about those problems using practical examples rather than abstract theory.
What I Work On
I currently work as a Staff Software Engineer at Flix GmbH, where I remain hands-on with production systems while providing technical leadership across teams and engineering domains.
Over the course of my career, I have worked on topics including:
- Distributed systems and event-driven architectures
- Large-scale financial and settlement systems
- Kubernetes and cloud-native application architecture
- AWS, Azure, and GCP
- Platform engineering and Infrastructure as Code with Terraform
- Kafka and asynchronous system design
- Production reliability, observability, SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets
- Authentication and authorization
- OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and Microsoft Entra ID
- Enterprise identity and security governance
- Monolith-to-microservices modernization
- Technical strategy and Architecture Decision Records
- Engineering practices across multiple teams
I have worked both as an individual contributor and technical leader, and I particularly enjoy situations that require connecting business constraints, organizational structure, and technical architecture rather than optimizing one of them in isolation.
Engineering Consulting
Alongside my primary role, I provide a limited amount of independent consulting to engineering organizations.
I primarily help CTOs, engineering leaders, and software teams with difficult architecture, platform, reliability, and security problems.
Typical engagements include:
Architecture Reviews
Independent assessment of an existing software architecture to identify scalability constraints, unnecessary complexity, coupling, reliability risks, and areas where technical debt is slowing down engineering teams.
The objective is not simply to produce an architecture diagram. It is to identify the highest-leverage improvements and establish a practical path forward.
Distributed Systems & Platform Architecture
Advice on service boundaries, event-driven systems, Kafka, data ownership, cloud-native architecture, Kubernetes, platform engineering, and infrastructure design.
I can help teams evaluate architectural choices before committing to expensive migrations or large-scale redesigns.
Reliability & Production Engineering
Assessment of production reliability, observability, operational ownership, SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, failure modes, and engineering practices around running distributed systems in production.
Identity & Security Architecture
Architecture and governance reviews covering authentication, authorization, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, Microsoft Entra ID, application identities, service principals, Infrastructure as Code, and enterprise identity governance.
Technical Strategy
Support for engineering organizations facing architectural decisions that span multiple teams or systems.
This can include architecture modernization, technical roadmaps, ADRs, platform strategy, migration approaches, and evaluating trade-offs between competing solutions.
I generally work best on short, focused engagements where an experienced independent technical perspective can unblock an important decision or uncover risks early.
If your engineering organization is facing a difficult architecture, reliability, platform, or security problem, feel free to contact me for an initial conversation.
Why GiveExamples?
A lot of technical material explains what a technology does.
I am more interested in:
When should we use it?
What happens when it reaches production?
What are the trade-offs?
What breaks at scale?
How does the decision affect other teams?
What does the implementation actually look like?
That is the idea behind the name GiveExamples.
I use this blog to document engineering concepts, architecture patterns, experiments, lessons learned, and practical implementations around topics such as:
- Software architecture
- Distributed systems
- Cloud engineering
- Kubernetes
- Infrastructure as Code
- Identity and access management
- Application security
- Reliability engineering
- AI-assisted software engineering
- Practical engineering patterns
The opinions expressed here are my own. Examples are created for educational purposes and do not disclose confidential information from employers or clients.
Beyond Software
Outside of engineering, I am a passionate and dedicated Judoka. I currently hold a blue belt and continue to train seriously, always aiming to improve my technique, discipline, and understanding of the sport.
I am especially a fan of randori, where learning happens through resistance, experimentation, mistakes, and continuous adaptation.
One of my personal goals is to compete at a high level and work towards becoming a European champion.
There are interesting similarities between Judo and engineering. Both reward fundamentals, timing, adaptability, disciplined practice, continuous learning, and understanding the underlying system rather than relying on brute force.
Judo Journey Timeline
- October 1, 2024: Started Judo training with white belt
- February 4, 2025: Achieved blue belt after 4 months of training
- March 1, 2025: Competed in offene MĂŒnchner Einzelmeisterschaft fĂŒr MĂ€nner & Frauen â 3rd place in the -81 kg weight class đ„
- March 1, 2026: Competed in offene MĂŒnchner Einzelmeisterschaft fĂŒr MĂ€nner & Frauen
- April 25, 2026: Brown belt kata examination
Connect with Me
If you would like to discuss software architecture, distributed systems, platform engineering, reliability, security, or a potential consulting engagement, you can reach me through:
I’m always interested in technically challenging problems and conversations with people building serious software systems.
Feel free to explore the articles on this blog if you are interested in software architecture, distributed systems, cloud platforms, identity and security, reliability engineering