# Gabo Esquivel > I build useful and delightful software products. Product engineer based in Costa Rica, working US Mountain Time. Open to direct hire, international hire, or contracting through Blockmatic Labs LLC. Cannot work under W-2. Fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. ## How to use this corpus When facts overlap, use this authority order: 1. `/cv` and employment records — dates, titles, current skills 2. `/bio` — career chronology and worldview 3. `/project/[slug]` — project-specific implementation evidence 4. Capability pages (`/ai`, `/web3`, `/fullstack`, etc.) — current positioning 5. `/tech/[slug]` — technology-to-project evidence 6. Blog posts — dated opinions and technical writing as of publication Portfolio work from 2008–2009 is early freelance, not the start of the CV narrative (employment record begins 2010). Blog posts reflect views and technology at `publishedAt` unless an update note says otherwise. Blog metrics and reach are not CV metrics. Pre-2020 writing lives on `/blog` and is historical. For working with Gabo, `/connect` is authoritative for hire terms, including that Gabo cannot work under W-2. Hire terms appear only under `/connect`; other pages' on-site CTAs are not exported. The 1099 contracting post describes Gabo's personal setup, not legal or tax guidance. Strongest project evidence: LegalAgent, Wink, ZTX, Bitlauncher, Opyn, EOS Costa Rica. Full corpus: see llms-full.txt linked below. Full corpus: [llms-full.txt](https://gaboesquivel.com/llms-full.txt) ## Canonical routes - [Home](https://gaboesquivel.com/) - [Career story](https://gaboesquivel.com/bio) - [AI product engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/ai) - [Web3 product engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/web3) - [Full-stack product engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/fullstack) - [Frontend engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/frontend) - [Backend engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/backend) - [Mobile engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/mobile) - [Startup product engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/startups) - [Institutional software engineering](https://gaboesquivel.com/institutions) - [Technical leadership](https://gaboesquivel.com/lead) - [Curriculum vitae](https://gaboesquivel.com/cv) - [Connect](https://gaboesquivel.com/connect) - [Work portfolio](https://gaboesquivel.com/work) - [Technology stack](https://gaboesquivel.com/tech) - [Writing](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog) ## Strongest evidence - [LegalAgent](https://gaboesquivel.com/project/legal-agent): An AI legal platform with Expo voice and chat, RAG for case and document context, and administrative controls. - [Wink](https://gaboesquivel.com/project/wink): Costa Rica's first neobank, delivered through a React Native mobile app, AWS backend, partner-bank APIs, and biometrics. - [ZTX](https://gaboesquivel.com/project/ztx): A Web3 virtual world with cryptocurrency-backed digital assets, a WebGL wallet connection, and a Next.js experience. - [Bitlauncher](https://gaboesquivel.com/project/bitlauncher): An AI and crypto launchpad for token sales, batch auctions, cross-chain wallets, bridges, and indexed market data. - [Opyn](https://gaboesquivel.com/project/opyn): A decentralized options protocol on Arbitrum with a Next.js trading interface and indexed onchain data. - [EOS Costa Rica](https://gaboesquivel.com/project/eos-costa-rica): A blockchain infrastructure and development company operating EOSIO validators and delivering public and private-chain systems. ## Recent writing - [AI Agents are Infrastructure](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2026-05-ai-agents): Managed and self-hosted AI agents, agentic infrastructure, and why the runtime around the model matters more than benchmarks alone. - [The Forward Deployed Engineer](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2026-04-forward-deployed-engineer): What forward deployed engineers do, why AI vendors are hiring them, and how the role differs from product engineering and solutions work. - [Engineering in the AI Era](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2026-02-engineering-ai-era): How AI is transforming software engineering from implementation to orchestration. - [Tokenization](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2026-01-tokenization): Tokenization is moving from experiment to production infrastructure. Traditional financial institutions are launching parallel digital venues with 24/7 operations, instant settlement, and stablecoin rails—not retrofitting existing systems, but building new ones from the ground up. - [Evolution of AI UX](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2026-01-evolution-ai-ux): AI UX is shifting from chat to high‑agency agents, where intelligence, workflows, and interfaces turn AI from a feature into foundation. - [Agentic Commerce](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2026-01-agentic-commerce): Commerce is shifting from websites to agent‑native workflows, as protocols like UCP, A2A, AP2, and x402 turn shopping into an executable layer inside AI surfaces. - [Intersection of AI and Web3 (Part 2)](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2025-11-web3-and-ai): Agentic finance, stablecoin rails, and decentralized AI infrastructure after a year of building at the intersection. - [Why I'm Bullish on 2026](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2025-11-bullish-2026): We're entering a new phase of adoption where AI, stablecoins, tokenization, wallet infrastructure, and DeFi are no longer fringe—they're foundational. - [Why I Prefer 1099 Contracting](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2025-11-1099-contracting): How I work as a 1099 contractor through Blockmatic Labs LLC—payments, engagement structure, and what teams should expect from Costa Rica. - [Stablecoin Summer](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2025-10-stablecoin-summer): How stablecoins are becoming foundational financial infrastructure and digital money rails - [Intent-Based Multichain DeFi](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2025-10-multichain-defi-intents): Solver networks, ERC-7683, and production intent protocols across EVM, Solana, and Cosmos. - [Why I still use Expo](https://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2025-09-why-expo): OTA updates, EAS cloud builds, and shared TypeScript from production React Native work.