[4] Esfahbod was among the founders of Sharif FarsiWeb Inc. which carried out internationalization and standardization projects related to open source and Persian language.

Among the projects he has led are the Cairo, fontconfig, HarfBuzz, and Pango libraries, which are standard parts of the GNOME desktop environment, the Google Chrome web browser, and the LibreOffice suite of programs.

[5] Esfahbod was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps intelligence echelon during a 2020 visit to Tehran.

He was then moved to Evin prison, where he was psychologically pressured and interrogated in solitary confinement for 7 days.

Iranian security forces let him go based on his promise to spy on his friends once he was back in the United States.