The Ethereum Basis has opened purposes for the 2026 Internship Program: a paid, full-time alternative to work immediately 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 will be accomplished remotely or from EF’s places of work. A summer time meetup will deliver the cohort collectively to attach in particular person.
The Aim
Ethereum continues to evolve; every improve, analysis initiative, and experiment relies on individuals prepared to dive into complicated 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 below the steering of skilled mentors inside Ethereum’s open, collaborative setting.
Who Ought to Apply
This system is meant for college college students or latest graduates enthusiastic about Ethereum, open-source contributions, and decentralized applied sciences. Excessive-signal candidates will have already got some understanding of Ethereum at a technical stage and wish to deepen that understanding by means of utilized work. Candidates ought to be self-directed and cozy exploring unfamiliar techniques.
Software Course of
Functions are open now by means of December 1, 2025. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to interviews over the following two months, with last alternatives introduced by early February. The internship runs for roughly 12 weeks in the course of the summer time, with versatile begin and finish dates to match tutorial calendars.
2026 Internship Roles
Groups throughout the EF are looking for interns. Every position is related to an EF group or initiative with energetic initiatives. Candidates ought to evaluation the complete listings on the EF job board for particulars on scope, most well-liked abilities, and instance duties.
Cryptography Analysis
The EF cryptography analysis group designs and analyzes cryptographic primitives important to Ethereum’s roadmap, advises protocol and consumer groups on safety selections, 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 secure fork on Ethereum. They obtain these targets by way of 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 making certain minimal requirements.
👉 Apply
Funding Coordination
The Strategic Funding Coordination group 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 group 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 decide exterior contributions.
👉 Apply
P2P Networking
The P2P Networking group addresses a confirmed bottleneck in Ethereum as we speak: 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 progress. They collaborate intently with consumer implementers, researchers, and libp2p maintainers throughout the ecosystem.
👉 Apply
Protocol Consensus
The Protocol Consensus group’s mission is to bridge the hole between the ensures offered by Ethereum’s consensus protocol as we speak and people needed to totally assist the community’s long-term values and goals. To maneuver towards this objective, they deal with actions resembling protocol design, theoretical evaluation, specification writing, academia engagement and collaboration with the broader ecosystem to make sure that concepts will be translated into follow.
👉 Apply
Protocol Prototyping
The Protocol Prototyping group builds end-to-end implementations of recent concepts for Ethereum’s core protocol. By turning ideas into working prototypes, the group explores how potential upgrades behave in follow, serving to the neighborhood transfer past idea and hypothesis. Their work exams assumptions, quantifies trade-offs, and uncovers dangers that will not be obvious from analysis alone.
👉 Apply
Protocol Safety
The Protocol Safety Analysis group safeguards Ethereum’s integrity. By way of coordination, meticulous code critiques, creating superior tooling, and real-world simulations, the group focuses on securing the community and its important parts. Their hands-on method consists of 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 group has a deal with formal verification utilized to cryptographic protocols and their implementations.
👉 Apply
Protocol Specs & Testing
The Specs and Testing for the Ethereum Execution Layer (STEEL) group consists primarily of two initiatives: Ethereum Execution Layer Specification (EELS) and Ethereum Execution Specification Exams (EEST).
The EELS challenge is answerable for the primary Ethereum protocol reference specification written in Python, which goals in the direction of changing the yellow-paper specification and being a vital support to the EIP course of as a way to present a prototyping framework for brand new updates.The EEST challenge is answerable for the Ethereum protocol reference exams, utilized by all shoppers to detect consensus points throughout new hard-fork implementations and regressions.
The group 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
Strong Incentives Group
The Strong Incentives Group (RIG) is a analysis group devoted to the examine of the Ethereum protocol by means of the lens of mechanism design. Their work maps all of the ways in which incentives immediately or not directly have an effect on Ethereum members. The place doable, the group 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 group’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 gives 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.
For those who’re able to spend your summer time constructing Ethereum, discover the open positions and apply now at:
👉 jobs.lever.co/ethereumfoundation
