The Ethereum Basis has opened functions for the 2026 Internship Program: a paid, full-time alternative to work instantly with groups advancing the Ethereum protocol and ecosystem.
Interns will be part of EF groups for 12 weeks over the summer season, contributing to lively 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 season meetup will carry the cohort collectively to attach in particular person.
The Objective
Ethereum continues to evolve; every improve, analysis initiative, and experiment depends 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 steerage of skilled mentors inside Ethereum’s open, collaborative setting.
Who Ought to Apply
This system is meant for college college students or current graduates keen 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 cozy 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 closing picks introduced by early February. The internship runs for roughly 12 weeks through the summer season, with versatile begin and finish dates to match tutorial calendars.
2026 Internship Roles
Groups throughout the EF are in search of interns. Every position is linked to an EF workforce or initiative with lively initiatives. Candidates ought to evaluate the complete listings on the EF job board for particulars on scope, most popular expertise, and instance duties.
Cryptography Analysis
The EF cryptography analysis workforce designs and analyzes cryptographic primitives vital to Ethereum’s roadmap, advises protocol and shopper 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 effectively examined, coordinated, and protected fork on Ethereum. They obtain these objectives by way of customized tooling, deployment scripts, and knowledge assortment pipelines. Moreover, EthPandaOps goals to empower the group to repurpose instruments for their very own wants, lowering total effort whereas making certain minimal requirements.
👉 Apply
Funding Coordination
The Strategic Funding Coordination workforce helps EF grantees and different important public items initiatives safe co-funding from ecosystem grants, authorities applications, philanthropic organizations, and choose industrial companions.
👉 Apply
Geth (Go-Ethereum)
The go-ethereum workforce builds Geth, an Ethereum execution-layer shopper written in Go. Throughout the EF, they do analysis and growth of the Ethereum protocol. As core builders, they form the protocol and decide exterior contributions.
👉 Apply
P2P Networking
The P2P Networking workforce addresses a confirmed bottleneck in Ethereum at present: 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 pondering to revamp the networking layer from scratch for long-term scalability and progress. They collaborate intently with shopper implementers, researchers, and libp2p maintainers throughout the ecosystem.
👉 Apply
Protocol Consensus
The Protocol Consensus workforce’s mission is to bridge the hole between the ensures supplied by Ethereum’s consensus protocol at present and people vital to completely help the community’s long-term values and goals. To maneuver towards this aim, they deal with actions reminiscent of 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 workforce builds end-to-end implementations of recent concepts for Ethereum’s core protocol. By turning ideas into working prototypes, the workforce explores how potential upgrades behave in follow, serving to the group transfer past concept 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 workforce safeguards Ethereum’s integrity. By coordination, meticulous code opinions, growing superior tooling, and real-world simulations, the workforce focuses on securing the community and its vital parts. Their hands-on method consists of managing the bug bounty program, constantly 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 workforce 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) workforce consists primarily of two initiatives: Ethereum Execution Layer Specification (EELS) and Ethereum Execution Specification Assessments (EEST).
The EELS challenge is accountable 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 as a way to present a prototyping framework for brand spanking new updates.The EEST challenge is accountable for the Ethereum protocol reference checks, utilized by all purchasers to detect consensus points throughout new hard-fork implementations and regressions.
The workforce additionally helps testing efforts for the consensus-specs, takes care of sustaining and bettering the tooling, frameworks, documentation and steerage required to facilitate the shopper builders with the consumption of the checks.
👉 Apply
Strong Incentives Group
The Strong Incentives Group (RIG) is a analysis workforce devoted to the examine 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 contributors. The place doable, the workforce 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 workforce’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 gives 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 season constructing Ethereum, discover the open positions and apply now at:
👉 jobs.lever.co/ethereumfoundation
