--- name: Jonathon Fritz title: Infrastructure & Platform Engineering Leader location: Victoria, BC website: https://resume.jonathonfritz.com email: j@jonathonfritz.com linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonfritz github: https://github.com/kaseonedge llm_friendly: true --- # Jonathon Fritz **Infrastructure & Platform Engineering Leader** Infrastructure and platform engineering leader with 20+ years building production systems across enterprise IT, Kubernetes/GitOps, global RPC infrastructure, Solana/Web3 systems, and AI-native platforms. I sit at the AI + blockchain infrastructure intersection: agentic operations, protocol/RPC scale, validator/node reliability, and production systems judgment beyond any single project. ## Role Positioning - Infrastructure & Platform Engineering Leader - AI + Blockchain Infrastructure - AI Infrastructure Architect - Solana / RPC Systems Operator - SRE / Infra Leadership ## Focus Areas - AI infrastructure - Kubernetes / GitOps - Rust + Solana systems - Blockchain infrastructure - Hermes + MCP ops - Infra leadership ## Metrics - 20+: years building infrastructure - 1B+: daily requests led - 16: infrastructure/agent roles mapped - −70%: infra cost reduction target ## Skills ### AI Engineering - Hermes Agent - Hermes Gateway - Multi-Agent Systems - OpenClaw Orchestration - ACP Harness Routing - ACPX CLI Dispatch - Lobster Workflows - Autonomous Coding Agents - Self-Healing AI - AI Workflow Design - Tool Use & Function Calling - Context Management ### LLM & Model Integration - Model Context Protocol (MCP) - Commercial LLM APIs - Self-Hosted Open-Weight Models - Model-Agnostic Orchestration - Inference Infrastructure - Tool Registration - Streaming Responses - Prompt Engineering ### Systems Programming - Rust - Tokio - Tonic/gRPC - Axum - Serde - Go - TypeScript - Kubernetes Controllers - Async Runtime ### Blockchain Infrastructure - Solana RPC - Validator/Node Operations - Ethereum - Base - Near - Polygon - BSC - RPC Gateways - Archival Nodes - Gas/Oracle Infrastructure - Blockscout - Reth - Arbitrum Orbit ### Distributed Systems & Low-Latency - gRPC Streaming - High-Throughput APIs - Global Regions - Failover Systems - HAProxy - Time-Series Storage - Cost Controls - Incident Response - OpenTelemetry ### Platform Engineering - Kubernetes - Talos Linux - ArgoCD - GitOps - Cilium/eBPF - Helm - Bare Metal Provisioning - AWS/EKS - Multi-Cloud - Provider Abstraction - OpenBao/Vault ### Observability - Prometheus - Grafana - Loki - OpenTelemetry - Fluent-bit - AI-Powered Alerting - Self-Healing Triggers - Incident Auto-Remediation ## Experience ### Founder & AI Infrastructure Architect — 5D Labs May 2025 – Present Building CTO Desktop and Hermes/OpenClaw infrastructure as a focused applied-R&D vehicle for agentic software delivery, local GitOps, model/provider routing, and self-healing Kubernetes operations. - Built CTO / CTO Desktop to prove production patterns for AI-assisted infrastructure operations: local GitOps, workflow routing, agent tooling, and Kubernetes remediation loops - Architected the Hermes/OpenClaw control-plane boundary: Hermes as the operator-facing gateway for skills/tools, providers, memory, and MCP adapters; OpenClaw as the execution/workflow engine underneath - Automated Talos Linux, Kubernetes, Helm, Argo CD, Cilium, OpenBao/Vault, observability, and bare-metal/cloud provider abstraction patterns with a cost-conscious operator mindset - Maintained hands-on production debugging discipline across logs, metrics, Git state, Kubernetes resources, and runbooks — using agents as acceleration, not as a substitute for engineering judgment - Converted lessons from prior SRE, global RPC, CTO, and enterprise infrastructure roles into reusable platform patterns for small AI-native teams ### Site Reliability Engineer — Blocknative May 2023 – May 2025 On-chain gas estimation infrastructure for Web3. - Led strategic transformation from mixed systemd/unikernel architecture to containerized infrastructure, achieving 100% Kubernetes adoption with ArgoCD-based GitOps workflows and a self-service model that reduced developer friction despite limited team size - Implemented bare metal Kubernetes cluster using RKE2 on Latitude hardware with Cilium for CNI and network security, supporting high-performance Reth nodes - Designed and implemented auto-scaling site-to-site connectivity solution, deploying Twingate Operator with AWS Gateway Load Balancer to achieve dynamic capacity management - Configured Arbitrum Orbit L3 devnet with 250ms blocktime, ensuring high availability while optimizing parent chain costs - Deployed and maintained Gas Network infrastructure, a distributed oracle platform providing near real-time gas price data and predictions across 35+ blockchain networks - Developed Go-based on-chain data exporter for wallet balances and transaction timestamps, enabling comprehensive blockchain monitoring in DataDog dashboards and alerts - Led observability initiatives using DataDog, implementing OpenTelemetry, APM, and distributed tracing while optimizing log ingestion costs - Implemented nOps and Kubecost for infrastructure cost analysis, leading team initiatives that reduced infrastructure spend by 40% ### Head of Infrastructure Engineering — Pocket Network Inc. Jul 2022 – Jan 2023 Decentralized Web3 infrastructure providing blockchain RPC access at scale. - Led and reorganized a team of 13 infrastructure engineers into specialized functional teams spanning 16 global regions — established clear ownership, streamlined communication, and enabled the team to operate independently - Led migration from EC2/Docker Compose to GitOps with Kubernetes and ArgoCD across all 16 global regions, significantly reducing operational costs and deployment complexity - Managed infrastructure serving over 1 billion daily requests across 50+ blockchain clients including validators, seeds, and archival nodes - Led migration from DataDog to VictoriaMetrics/Loki/Grafana, drastically reducing observability costs while improving coverage - Implemented comprehensive automation for node operations including key management, staking, and auto-upgrades - Established Multi-Cluster architecture with Kubernetes, Helm, and ArgoCD for consistent global deployments ### DevOps Team Lead — Pocket Network Inc. Jan 2022 – Jul 2022 Decentralized Web3 infrastructure. - Promoted to lead the DevOps team after demonstrating technical excellence in blockchain operations - Led implementation of infrastructure as code for provisioning of diverse blockchain nodes - Coordinated team efforts to optimize blockchain client configurations for improved performance - Designed CI/CD pipelines for rapid deployment of infrastructure updates - Mentored junior engineers on blockchain infrastructure best practices and protocols ### Sr DevOps Engineer — Pocket Network Inc. Jul 2021 – Jan 2022 Decentralized Web3 infrastructure. - Designed and built automated health monitoring system for blockchain nodes with HAProxy integration - Provisioned and maintained diverse blockchain clients (Geth, Erigon, Polygon, BSC) to support the POKT network - Implemented automated failover systems to ensure 99.9% uptime for RPC endpoints - Optimized blockchain node performance through benchmarking and tuning - Developed automation scripts to streamline node deployment and maintenance operations ### Chief Technology Officer — Coinmiles Sep 2019 – Jul 2021 Cryptocurrency rewards platform. - Promoted from Software Engineer to CTO within three months — fastest path from IC to executive in the company history — leading all technical aspects of the platform - Designed and implemented backend features including ACH and API payment processing systems - Led technical team management including mentoring, hiring, and code reviews - Managed cloud infrastructure operations with continuous deployment using GitLab CI - Implemented security improvements and GraphQL architecture upgrades ### Software Engineer — Coinmiles May 2019 – Sep 2019 Cryptocurrency rewards platform. - Developed core platform features for cryptocurrency rewards application - Contributed to microservices architecture using AWS serverless technologies - Collaborated on React Native mobile application development ### Software Engineer / DevOps — Consensus Core May 2018 – May 2019 Digital infrastructure providing blockchain-focused data centers. - Determined project scope and maintained independent project management workflows - Designed and implemented GraphQL API and React front-end for Mining-as-a-Service application - Responsible for cloud infrastructure operations with AWS CodePipeline for continuous deployment - Designed and implemented LAN/WAN architecture for remote cloud mining facilities - Established hardware vendor relationships and managed procurement for mining operations ### Owner, Lead Engineering Consultant — NextWave Technologies Oct 2016 – May 2018 Technical consulting for small businesses. - Engaged directly with clients to determine business needs and develop solutions - Designed and implemented web and mobile applications using modern JavaScript frameworks - Built REST APIs for cryptocurrency startups, aggregating data from multiple exchanges - Deployed applications to AWS with continuous integration using CodePipeline ### Technology Specialist — TELUS Nov 2006 – Apr 2017 Enterprise IT infrastructure support. - Led enterprise server operations across multiple sites, managing 20+ hosts and 300+ VMs - Implemented and maintained server configuration standards and templates - Automated operations workflow, reducing server provisioning time by 65% - Led disaster recovery implementation for Finning International, exceeding objectives - Provided 24/7 support according to rotation schedule for critical infrastructure ## Selected Systems ### CTO / Hermes — Agentic Infrastructure Lab Applied-R&D system for agentic software delivery: Hermes provides the operator-facing gateway for skills/tools, model/provider routing, MCP adapters, and memory; OpenClaw provides execution workflows underneath. Kept as evidence of architecture, platform automation, and production debugging discipline — not as the whole career story. Technologies: Hermes, OpenClaw, MCP, Rust, Kubernetes, GitOps, Bare Metal Link: https://github.com/5dlabs/cto ### Hermes / OpenClaw Workflow Orchestration Agent workflow infrastructure with dynamic skill loading, provider routing, CLI execution surfaces, and MCP tool adapters. Emphasizes model-agnostic operations and reliability boundaries rather than a single vendor or prototype demo. Technologies: Hermes, OpenClaw, ACPX, Lobster, MCP, Rust, Kubernetes ### Blockchain / Protocol Infrastructure Production infrastructure across Solana, Ethereum, Base, Near, Polygon, BSC, RPC gateways, validators, archival nodes, gas/oracle systems, and global node operations. This is the AI + blockchain infrastructure intersection: protocol-adjacent reliability, operator automation, Rust/systems thinking, and scale — not a JavaScript app profile. Technologies: Solana, Rust, RPC, Validators, Ethereum, Base, Near, Node Operations ### Hermes / MCP Runtime — Model-Agnostic Platform Hermes-centric runtime with MCP integrations, local memory, browser/search/crawler providers, ACP harness routing, ACPX-backed CLI dispatch, and commercial or self-hosted LLM routing. Dynamic tool registration, real-time context streaming, and seamless hot-swapping between providers as the model landscape evolves. Technologies: Hermes Agent, MCP, ACPX, ACP Harness, Rust, Axum, Model-Agnostic, SSE ## Education ### Hack Reactor Advanced Software Engineering Immersive Program · 2016 Intensive software engineering bootcamp focused on full-stack JavaScript development - Completed 800+ hours of accelerated full-stack curriculum - Developed multiple web applications using React, Node.js, and related technologies ### CDI College Network Infrastructure Engineering Immersive Program · 2002–2003 Comprehensive program covering network design, implementation, and management ### Cisco Networking Academy Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) · 2000–2001 Foundation in network configuration, troubleshooting, and management ## Machine-readable Notes - Canonical website: https://resume.jonathonfritz.com/ - Structured JSON: https://resume.jonathonfritz.com/resume.json - LLM guide: https://resume.jonathonfritz.com/llms.txt - Best-fit roles: infrastructure/platform leadership, AI infrastructure, agent infrastructure, Solana/RPC/protocol infrastructure, SRE leadership, and fractional CTO/infrastructure consulting. - Positioning guardrail: blockchain experience should be read as infrastructure/protocol/RPC/validator reliability experience, not token/DeFi/NFT/product marketing.