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 energetic R&D and ecosystem-oriented initiatives throughout a variety of focus areas. The internship is open to candidates worldwide and may be accomplished remotely or from EF’s workplaces. A summer time meetup will convey the cohort collectively to attach in particular person.
The Aim
Ethereum continues to evolve; every improve, analysis initiative, and experiment is dependent upon individuals keen 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 degree and wish to deepen that understanding via utilized work. Candidates needs to be self-directed and comfy exploring unfamiliar programs.
Utility Course of
Functions are open now via December 1, 2025. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to interviews over the following two months, with ultimate alternatives 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 looking for interns. Every function is related to an EF staff or initiative with energetic initiatives. Candidates ought to assessment 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 staff designs and analyzes cryptographic primitives essential to Ethereum’s roadmap, advises protocol and shopper groups on safety selections, and publishes peer-reviewed outcomes that maintain 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 objectives by way of customized tooling, deployment scripts, and knowledge 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 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 shopper written in Go. Inside the EF, they do analysis and growth 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 in the present day: 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 shopper 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 in the present day and people mandatory to totally help the community’s long-term values and aims. To maneuver towards this aim, they deal with actions comparable to protocol design, theoretical evaluation, specification writing, academia engagement and collaboration with the broader ecosystem to make sure that concepts may be translated into observe.
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Protocol Prototyping
The Protocol Prototyping staff builds end-to-end implementations of latest concepts for Ethereum’s core protocol. By turning ideas into working prototypes, the staff explores how potential upgrades behave in observe, serving to the neighborhood transfer past idea and hypothesis. Their work assessments assumptions, quantifies trade-offs, and uncovers dangers that might not be obvious from analysis alone.
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Protocol Safety
The Protocol Safety Analysis staff safeguards Ethereum’s integrity. By means of coordination, meticulous code evaluations, growing superior tooling, and real-world simulations, the staff focuses on securing the community and its essential parts. Their hands-on method consists of managing the bug bounty program, repeatedly monitoring the community, and collaborating with shopper groups.
👉 Apply
Protocol Snarkification
The Protocol Snarkification is devoted to snarkifying the Ethereum protocol, alongside the Cryptography and zkEVM groups. Specifically, the staff has a deal with formal verification utilized to cryptographic protocols and their implementations.
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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 Assessments (EEST).
- The EELS venture is liable for the principle 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 in an effort to present a prototyping framework for brand new updates.
- The EEST venture is liable for the Ethereum protocol reference assessments, utilized by all purchasers 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 shopper builders with the consumption of the assessments.
👉 Apply
Strong Incentives Group
The Strong 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 individuals. The place potential, the staff proposes mechanisms to realize incentive compatibility and system optimality.
👉 Apply
Stateless Consensus
Stateless Consensus builds superior prototypes and instruments with the first goal of ushering in a stateless Ethereum period, which can make Ethereum extra scalable, usable, and ubiquitous.
👉 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, shopper and protocol integration, and financial incentives and safety.
👉 Apply
A Path Into the Protocol Layer
The EF Internship Program presents 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: