The Ethereum Basis has opened purposes for the 2026 Internship Program: a paid, full-time alternative to work instantly 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 lively R&D and ecosystem-oriented initiatives throughout a variety of focus areas. The internship is open to candidates worldwide and might be accomplished remotely or from EF’s workplaces. A summer time meetup will carry the cohort collectively to attach in particular person.
The Aim
Ethereum continues to evolve; every improve, analysis initiative, and experiment will depend on individuals keen to dive into complicated issues and assist construct what comes subsequent. The internship is designed to provide rising engineers and researchers a sensible path into that work. Interns contribute to actual initiatives below the steering of skilled mentors inside Ethereum’s open, collaborative surroundings.
Who Ought to Apply
This system is meant for college college students or latest 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 stage and need to deepen that understanding via utilized work. Candidates ought to be self-directed and comfy exploring unfamiliar programs.
Software Course of
Purposes are open now via December 1, 2025. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to interviews over the subsequent two months, with remaining picks introduced by early February. The internship runs for about 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 function is related to an EF staff or initiative with lively initiatives. Candidates ought to evaluation the complete listings on the EF job board for particulars on scope, most popular abilities, and instance duties.
Cryptography Analysis
The EF cryptography analysis staff 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 properly examined, coordinated, and protected fork on Ethereum. They obtain these objectives through customized tooling, deployment scripts, and knowledge assortment pipelines. Moreover, EthPandaOps goals to empower the neighborhood to repurpose instruments for their very own wants, lowering general effort whereas making certain minimal requirements.
👉 Apply
Funding Coordination
The Strategic Funding Coordination staff helps EF grantees and different important public items initiatives safe co-funding from ecosystem grants, authorities packages, philanthropic organizations, and choose business companions.
👉 Apply
Geth (Go-Ethereum)
The go-ethereum staff 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 staff addresses a confirmed bottleneck in Ethereum at the moment: the networking layer. They work on two fronts: bettering the present stack to ship on Ethereum’s quick and medium-term ambitions whereas conducting radical, first-principles considering to revamp the networking layer from scratch for long-term scalability and development. They collaborate carefully with consumer implementers, researchers, and libp2p maintainers throughout the ecosystem.
👉 Apply
Protocol Consensus
The Protocol Consensus staff’s mission is to bridge the hole between the ensures supplied by Ethereum’s consensus protocol at the moment and people essential to completely help the community’s long-term values and aims. To maneuver towards this aim, they give attention to actions equivalent to protocol design, theoretical evaluation, specification writing, academia engagement and collaboration with the broader ecosystem to make sure that concepts might be translated into follow.
👉 Apply
Protocol Prototyping
The Protocol Prototyping staff builds end-to-end implementations of recent concepts for Ethereum’s core protocol. By turning ideas into working prototypes, the staff explores how potential upgrades behave in follow, serving to the neighborhood transfer past idea and hypothesis. Their work checks assumptions, quantifies trade-offs, and uncovers dangers that will not be obvious from analysis alone.
👉 Apply
Protocol Safety
The Protocol Safety Analysis staff safeguards Ethereum’s integrity. By way of coordination, meticulous code opinions, creating superior tooling, and real-world simulations, the staff 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. Particularly, the staff 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) staff consists primarily of two initiatives: Ethereum Execution Layer Specification (EELS) and Ethereum Execution Specification Exams (EEST).
- The EELS undertaking is chargeable for the principle Ethereum protocol reference specification written in Python, which goals in the direction of changing the yellow-paper specification and being a vital help to the EIP course of in an effort to present a prototyping framework for brand spanking new updates.
- The EEST undertaking is chargeable for the Ethereum protocol reference checks, utilized by all shoppers to detect consensus points throughout new hard-fork implementations and regressions.
The staff 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 checks.
👉 Apply
Sturdy Incentives Group
The Sturdy Incentives Group (RIG) is a analysis staff devoted to the research of the Ethereum protocol via the lens of mechanism design. Their work maps all of the ways in which incentives instantly or not directly have an effect on Ethereum members. The place potential, the staff 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 staff’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 provides an entry level into protocol-level work. It’s a chance to contribute meaningfully whereas gaining expertise, mentorship, and context for the way Ethereum is maintained and superior.
In case you’re able to spend your summer time constructing Ethereum, discover the open positions and apply now at:
