Zach Perlman / Portfolio / 2026
Miami, FL
N° 07 · Swiss

Systems. Signal. Shape.

Role
Engineer

Web3 infrastructure · real-time systems · the fun parts of the web. Not actively looking, but always happy to chat.

01 / About

A Quiet
Engineer.

Senior engineer at Quicknode building blockchain RPC and developer tooling used across the crypto ecosystem. I like things that are fast, small, and a little weird — x402 payment rails, agent arenas, raw-transaction sleuthing, healthcare dashboards that have to clear HIPAA. AI is changing development daily; the work now is finding the safe new tools that level up the LLMs. A lot was possible before; anything is possible now. If you're not using this day-to-day, you're falling behind.

10+Years shipping
81Public repos
EVMChain of choice
3Coffee / day
TypeScriptSolidityGoPythonReactNext.jsNode.jsPostgreSQLRedisEthereumViemHardhatFoundryAWSGraphQL

02 / Work

Selected
Projects.

  • 01

    x402-rails

    Public package · payment rails for the agentic era · 2026

    Open-source backbone infrastructure for x402 — programmatic HTTP 402 settlements between AI agents and the services they call. Per-request stablecoin payments without an account, an invoice, or a tab. Free for anyone to drop in.TypeScript · Viem · Solidity · Node.js

  • 02

    x402-payments

    Public package · drop-in x402 for any API · 2026

    Open-source SDK that lets a Node or Next.js endpoint quote a price, settle it on-chain, and serve the response — turning any function into an instantly-monetizable agent service. Install, wrap your handler, ship.TypeScript · Next.js · Viem · EVM

  • 03

    x402playground.com

    A live x402 sandbox · 2026

    Open the page, connect a wallet, watch real x402 calls execute against demo endpoints. The fastest way to see paid HTTP feel like a normal fetch().Next.js · Viem · Wagmi · Tailwind

  • 04

    agentarena.xyz

    Where agents fight for benchmarks · 2026

    A leaderboard + match runner for autonomous agents — pit different models on the same task, score speed/cost/correctness, share replays. Every invocation is metered through x402.Next.js · TypeScript · Postgres · x402

  • 05

    x402pokemon

    Pokémon trades over x402 · 2026

    A demo that lets two agents trade Pokémon between each other with x402 settlements between every move. Pure showcase — also genuinely fun.TypeScript · Viem · OpenAI · x402

  • 06

    Wacdonalds

    AI burger ops · 2026

    A weekend project where an LLM runs the kitchen — orders flow in, agents fill them, x402 invoices print for every nugget. Half satire, half genuine experiment in agentic dispatch.Next.js · TypeScript · OpenAI · x402

  • 07

    Packz

    Bundles for autonomous agents · 2026

    Curated packs of x402-paid services an agent can subscribe to with one signature — research, code execution, rendering, image gen. Buy a pack, give it to an agent, watch it work.TypeScript · Viem · Next.js

  • 08

    Story-block

    On-chain interactive fiction · 2026

    Branching narratives where readers vote on the next chapter with on-chain signals; outcomes get attested as blocks. Blockchain as story-state machine, not as ticker.Next.js · Solidity · Viem · MDX

  • 09

    Modtech

    Modular tech consulting · 2026

    Sticking-point code review + architecture work for early-stage teams. Drop in for a sprint, leave behind something that's still maintainable a year later.TypeScript · Next.js · Postgres · AWS

  • 010

    Enterprise CMS dashboards

    HIPAA-compliant control surfaces · 2026

    Multi-tenant content + analytics dashboards built to clear HIPAA, SOC 2, and the audit trail every healthcare buyer asks for. Row-level security in Postgres, signed-URL document delivery, full event log.Next.js · Postgres (RLS) · TypeScript · AWS

  • 011

    poc-distribution

    Referral fee distribution PoCs · 2026

    Three parallel proofs-of-concept for scalable on-chain referral payouts: 1inch CumulativeMerkleDrop, Thirdweb Airdrop, and Splits Protocol. Live-tested on Polygon mainnet with gas benchmarks.TypeScript · Solidity · Viem · Hardhat · Polygon

  • 012

    rawTxnAddressFinder

    Raw transaction archaeology · 2025

    JavaScript CLI that decodes raw Ethereum transactions and surfaces the signer address + nonce without needing an RPC. Great for forensics and cold-wallet recovery flows.JavaScript · ethers.js · Node.js

  • 013

    zlerplabs.com

    A personal sandbox · 2025

    Long-running experiments blog — part playground, part portfolio, part accidental README. Runs on Next.js with a custom MDX pipeline and view-transitions-powered post navigation.Next.js · MDX · Tailwind · Vercel

03 / Career

Experience.

  1. 2022Now
    Quicknode
    Senior Engineer
    • Built internal tooling for blockchain RPC observability, adopted across multiple product teams.
    • Shipped referral-fee distribution infrastructure handling on-chain payouts to thousands of developers.
    • Driving x402 payment rails + agentic infrastructure work — turning HTTP 402 from a curiosity into shipping rails for paid agent calls.
    • Contributor on the core platform powering RPC + streams for web3 developers.
  2. 2020Now
    Zlerp Labs
    Builder-in-Residence (self)
    • Personal R&D — smart-contract experiments, small web apps, occasional blog posts at zlerplabs.com.
    • Published open-source utilities like rawTxnAddressFinder and distribution PoCs.
  3. 20152022
    Prior startups
    Full-stack / Product Engineer
    • Shipped consumer and B2B products across a handful of early-stage teams.
    • Owned frontend, backend, and a lot of 'whatever nobody else wants to touch'.

04 / Contact

Let's
Work.

Not actively looking, but always happy to chat.

§01 / Direct Line

or email direct: z.h.perlman@gmail.com
Location
Miami, FL

Set on a 12-column grid · Archivo & Archivo Black · 2026

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