About
Most of the work behind a cloud happens in software its users never see. The control plane handles permissions, workload placement, and recovery when things fail. That’s the part I work on.
My current work focuses on sovereign cloud control planes for organizations running their own infrastructure. Most of my time goes into designing APIs between Kubernetes and the underlying infrastructure, and making sure operations behave correctly when something fails or gets retried.
I’ve spent over twenty years building distributed systems, from carrier-grade telephony to fintech and AI platforms. I still write code, deploy it, and debug things when they break. I’ve never been particularly interested in architecture that only works on paper.
I write and speak about distributed systems, failure handling, and the gap between how infrastructure is designed and how it actually behaves in production.
From telecommunications to cloud control planes
Current focus
Sovereign cloud control planes
I design and implement the APIs and workflows that connect Kubernetes to infrastructure platforms. The work spans machine lifecycle, networking, storage, infrastructure automation and recovery after failed or retried operations.
Jul 2024 - present
Software Architect, Wiser Technology
I led architecture for a multi-team Kubernetes PaaS and built backend, retrieval and ingestion services for enterprise AI systems. The work connected system design and API contracts with automated tests, deployment dependencies and Kubernetes delivery.
Oct 2022 - Jul 2024
Software Architect, Prime Holding
I led technical direction and hands-on architecture for a Go-based property platform serving developers and buyers. I worked directly with stakeholders and engineering teams to turn product requirements into system boundaries and maintainable software.
Jun 2020 - Oct 2022
Engineering Manager, SumUp
I led a card-issuing engineering team responsible for balances, transaction management, customer onboarding and KYC integration. I combined people leadership with hands-on architecture and delivery work.
Sep 2017 - Jun 2020
Software Engineer, SumUp
I built mobile point-of-sale software in Java and Swift. I also helped build a Windows SDK and REST integration layer for POS devices.
Dec 2016 - Sep 2017
Founder and Software Engineer, 84Bits
I co-founded a small product-engineering company and delivered systems for document management, media streaming and fleet tracking. I worked directly with customers from requirements and architecture through implementation and delivery.
Jul 2013 - Dec 2016
Team Lead and Software Architect, SevOne
I led engineering work on a large-scale network-performance monitoring product. My team built a new storage engine for high-volume NetFlow data and worked across ingestion, storage, reporting and operational failures.
Mar 2012 - Jul 2013
Software Engineer, ICDSoft
I built backend systems for hosting operations, including abuse-case workflows and a clustered ERP covering accounting, account management, provisioning and customer operations.
Jun 2006 - Mar 2012
Software Engineer and Team Lead, Fibernetics
I built and led development of carrier-grade systems for call origination, routing, billing, monitoring and voicemail. The work covered resilient services, external APIs and production operations.
Feb 2004 - Jul 2005
Founder and Software Engineer, Internet Corporate Systems
I co-founded a web-hosting business and built its customer control panel and internal billing system, including integration with external payment providers.
May 2003 - Sep 2003
Software Engineer, Proshe.BG
I built billing, rating and routing software for an ISP's VoIP services using Perl, C++, PHP, MySQL, Asterisk and RADIUS.
I am based in Sofia, Bulgaria. You can reach me at szahariev@szahariev.com for speaking invitations or technical conversations.