# DevMatch — Pay-Per-Call Engineer Hiring

> DevMatch — Pay-Per-Call Engineer Hiring is a paid API for AI agents from mcp.dev-match.xyz, paid per call via x402, $1.25/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-14).

Finds and ranks software engineering candidates based on verified open-source contributions, given a job description, informal brief, or GitHub repo URL.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://mcp.dev-match.xyz/mcp/x402/find_candidates
- Price: $1.25/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-14
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/devmatch-pay-per-call-engineer-hiring-e16cc074
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_NXzo2g2qxXR7PO_D8ZM9A

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability devmatch-pay-per-call-engineer-hiring-e16cc074 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Find me up to 10 engineers on DevMatch who'd be a strong fit for a senior Rust systems engineer role focused on embedded networking — exclude anyone from the 'tokio-rs' org.

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need to source engineering candidates based on real, verifiable open-source contributions rather than self-reported resumes or LinkedIn profiles. It is especially useful when you have a specific GitHub repo, tech stack, or job brief to match against, and want ranked results quickly without managing a full ATS or recruiter workflow.

## Known failure modes

- HTTP 402 returned if call is unpaid and no valid API key or OAuth token is provided — requires USDC payment on Base or authenticated session
- Empty candidate list if the job description is too vague or no matching contributors are found
- Invalid or inaccessible GitHub repo URL causes lookup failure
- Excluded logins/orgs list reduces result set to fewer than requested candidates
- Rate limiting or credit exhaustion for monthly-credit billing users

## How this service works

Pay-per-call access to engineers ranked by verified open-source contributions and other public work. Unpaid calls to the paid resource return an x402 HTTP 402 challenge (USDC on Base). Authenticate with OAuth or an X-API-Key for monthly-credit billing instead.

## Output

Returns a list of ranked engineering candidates, each with their GitHub login, full name, bio, profile URL, and location, plus a total count of matched candidates.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "input"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "input": {
     "type": "string",
     "description": "Job description, informal brief, or public github.com repo URL"
    },
    "limit": {
     "type": "integer",
     "maximum": 50,
     "minimum": 1,
     "description": "Max candidates (default 20, max 50)"
    },
    "exclude": {
     "type": "array",
     "items": {
      "type": "string"
     },
     "description": "GitHub logins or orgs to exclude"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "view": "candidates",
  "candidates": [
   {
    "bio": "Rust systems engineer",
    "name": "Example Dev",
    "login": "example_dev",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/example_dev",
    "location": "Remote"
   }
  ],
  "total_count": 20
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/devmatch-pay-per-call-engineer-hiring-e16cc074/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from mcp.dev-match.xyz](https://www.zero.xyz/host/mcp.dev-match.xyz/llms.txt)