The Ethereum Basis has opened purposes for the 2026 Internship Program: a paid, full-time alternative to work straight with groups advancing the Ethereum protocol and ecosystem.
Interns will be a part of EF groups for 12 weeks over the summer time, contributing to energetic R&D and ecosystem-oriented initiatives throughout a variety of focus areas. The internship is open to candidates worldwide and could be accomplished remotely or from EF’s places of work. A summer time meetup will convey the cohort collectively to attach in particular person.
The Objective
Ethereum continues to evolve; every improve, analysis initiative, and experiment relies on individuals keen to dive into advanced issues and assist construct what comes subsequent. The internship is designed to present rising engineers and researchers a sensible path into that work. Interns contribute to actual initiatives beneath the steering of skilled mentors inside Ethereum’s open, collaborative atmosphere.
Who Ought to Apply
This system is meant for college college students or current graduates obsessed with Ethereum, open-source contributions, and decentralized applied sciences. Excessive-signal candidates will have already got some understanding of Ethereum at a technical degree and wish to deepen that understanding by utilized work. Candidates ought to be self-directed and cozy exploring unfamiliar methods.
Software Course of
Purposes are open now by December 1, 2025. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to interviews over the subsequent two months, with last choices introduced by early February. The internship runs for roughly 12 weeks throughout the summer time, with versatile begin and finish dates to match educational calendars.
2026 Internship Roles
Groups throughout the EF are searching for interns. Every position is related to an EF crew or initiative with energetic initiatives. Candidates ought to evaluate the total listings on the EF job board for particulars on scope, most well-liked expertise, and instance duties.
Cryptography Analysis
The EF cryptography analysis crew designs and analyzes cryptographic primitives vital to Ethereum’s roadmap, advises protocol and consumer groups on safety decisions, and publishes peer-reviewed outcomes that hold Ethereum on the bleeding fringe of cryptography analysis.
👉 Apply
DevOps
EthPandaOps helps guarantee a nicely examined, coordinated, and secure fork on Ethereum. They obtain these targets through customized tooling, deployment scripts, and information assortment pipelines. Moreover, EthPandaOps goals to empower the neighborhood to repurpose instruments for their very own wants, decreasing total effort whereas guaranteeing minimal requirements.
👉 Apply
Funding Coordination
The Strategic Funding Coordination crew helps EF grantees and different important public items initiatives safe co-funding from ecosystem grants, authorities applications, philanthropic organizations, and choose business companions.
👉 Apply
Geth (Go-Ethereum)
The go-ethereum crew builds Geth, an Ethereum execution-layer consumer written in Go. Throughout the EF, they do analysis and improvement of the Ethereum protocol. As core builders, they form the protocol and choose exterior contributions.
👉 Apply
P2P Networking
The P2P Networking crew addresses a confirmed bottleneck in Ethereum right this moment: the networking layer. They work on two fronts: bettering the present stack to ship on Ethereum’s brief and medium-term ambitions whereas conducting radical, first-principles pondering to revamp the networking layer from scratch for long-term scalability and development. They collaborate intently with consumer implementers, researchers, and libp2p maintainers throughout the ecosystem.
👉 Apply
Protocol Consensus
The Protocol Consensus crew’s mission is to bridge the hole between the ensures offered by Ethereum’s consensus protocol right this moment and people vital to completely assist the community’s long-term values and aims. To maneuver towards this objective, they give attention to actions corresponding to protocol design, theoretical evaluation, specification writing, academia engagement and collaboration with the broader ecosystem to make sure that concepts could be translated into observe.
👉 Apply
Protocol Prototyping
The Protocol Prototyping crew builds end-to-end implementations of latest concepts for Ethereum’s core protocol. By turning ideas into working prototypes, the crew explores how potential upgrades behave in observe, serving to the neighborhood transfer past concept and hypothesis. Their work exams assumptions, quantifies trade-offs, and uncovers dangers that is probably not obvious from analysis alone.
👉 Apply
Protocol Safety
The Protocol Safety Analysis crew safeguards Ethereum’s integrity. Via coordination, meticulous code evaluations, creating superior tooling, and real-world simulations, the crew focuses on securing the community and its vital elements. Their hands-on method contains managing the bug bounty program, repeatedly monitoring the community, and collaborating with consumer groups.
👉 Apply
Protocol Snarkification
The Protocol Snarkification is devoted to snarkifying the Ethereum protocol, alongside the Cryptography and zkEVM groups. Specifically, the crew has a give attention to formal verification utilized to cryptographic protocols and their implementations.
👉 Apply
Protocol Specs & Testing
The Specs and Testing for the Ethereum Execution Layer (STEEL) crew consists primarily of two initiatives: Ethereum Execution Layer Specification (EELS) and Ethereum Execution Specification Assessments (EEST).
- The EELS undertaking is accountable for the primary Ethereum protocol reference specification written in Python, which goals in direction of changing the yellow-paper specification and being an important assist to the EIP course of to be able to present a prototyping framework for brand new updates.
- The EEST undertaking is accountable for the Ethereum protocol reference exams, utilized by all shoppers to detect consensus points throughout new hard-fork implementations and regressions.
The crew additionally helps testing efforts for the consensus-specs, takes care of sustaining and bettering the tooling, frameworks, documentation and steering required to facilitate the consumer builders with the consumption of the exams.
👉 Apply
Sturdy Incentives Group
The Sturdy Incentives Group (RIG) is a analysis crew devoted to the examine of the Ethereum protocol by the lens of mechanism design. Their work maps all of the ways in which incentives straight or not directly have an effect on Ethereum members. The place attainable, the crew proposes mechanisms to realize incentive compatibility and system optimality.
👉 Apply
zkEVM
Bringing zkEVMs to the Ethereum layer 1 is a multi-faceted effort. The zkEVM crew’s work is organized into three core workstreams; real-time proving, consumer and protocol integration, and financial incentives and safety.
👉 Apply
A Path Into the Protocol Layer
The EF Internship Program affords an entry level into protocol-level work. It’s a chance to contribute meaningfully whereas gaining expertise, mentorship, and context for a way Ethereum is maintained and superior.
If you happen to’re able to spend your summer time constructing Ethereum, discover the open positions and apply now at:
👉 jobs.lever.co/ethereumfoundation
