Announcing the 2025 EF Internship Program!

The 2025 Ethereum Foundation internship applications are open! Both research and development teams have open positions. Applications close on December 9, 2024.

The Ethereum Foundation is running its first formal summer internship program in 2025 aimed at nurturing the next generation of Ethereum developers and researchers.

Interns will work alongside EF teams and, with the help of dedicated mentors, contribute directly to core projects in key areas such as protocol security, account abstraction, scaling research, client development, and more. For example, a past intern worked on MEV smoothing research before eventually joining the EF full time.

Who is this for?

Applicants should be familiar with the Ethereum protocol and available for full-time work. If currently in university, they should be advanced in their studies. Applicants should have demonstrable interest in the speciality of the team with whom they apply to work.

Program

Selected interns will be assigned a short-term project and a mentor and should expect to work somewhat autonomously. Interns can choose to either work remotely, or in one of the EF offices, in Boulder (USA) or Berlin (Germany). In addition, interns will be invited for an in-person cohort meetup in the summer.

EPF vs internship

The internship is geared toward those available for a defined ‘summer time’ commitment with a general skillset and a desire to learn how to apply that skillset to the Ethereum domain. In contrast, the existing Ethereum Protocol Fellowship is a six month program that assumes advanced knowledge and a desire for full-time work in Ethereum.

Application Process

Applications are live and will close on December 9, 2024. Initial screenings will be followed by formal interviews, with the notification process expected to be complete by 10 Jan.

The duration of the program will be approximately 12 weeks with start and end dates flexible depending on university schedules.

You can apply for the roles here:

Mentoring teams

1. Protocol Security – The Protocol Security Research team safeguards Ethereum’s integrity. Through coordination, meticulous code reviews, research, developing advanced tooling, and real-world simulations, we focus on securing the network and its critical components. Our hands-on approach includes managing the bug bounty program, continuously monitoring the network, and collaborating with client teams. We’re committed to identifying and mitigating risks to Ethereum mainnet. Check out the Protocol Security README

   Preferred skills: Cybersecurity classes or experience

2. Robust Incentives Group – The Robust Incentives Group is a research team dedicated to the study of mechanism design and cryptoeconomics for Ethereum. Our work maps all the ways that incentives directly or indirectly affect users and protocol stakeholders of Ethereum. Where possible, we propose mechanisms to recover incentive compatibility and system optimality. Our methods are varied, from formal analysis to data science and simulations, and we engage academic and general audiences with diverse formats of grants, publications and talks. Check out our work on our homepage and follow our updates with our newsletter!

   Preferred skills: Familiarity with RIG initiatives, previous work or writings in mechanism design or economics research

3. Portal Network – The Portal Network is a new networking design for Ethereum that aims to solve the data availability problem for “light” nodes without having to trust or put extra strain on full nodes, by sharing the necessary data in small chunks across the network. Check out the ethereum.org explainer, talks from Devcon SEA 2024, Devcon Bogotá 2022, the network specs.

   Preferred skills: Computer science classes, some Rust knowledge

4. Testing – The EEST project is responsible for the Ethereum protocol reference tests, used by all clients to detect consensus issues during new hard-fork implementations and regressions.
   The team also takes care of maintaining and improving the tooling, frameworks, documentation and guidance required to facilitate the client developers with the consumption of the tests, which includes the EEST, the legacy ethereum/tests repository, and also integration tests in the form of various hive simulators.
   Check out the Devcon SEA 2024 talk on EEST.

   Preferred skills: Testing frameworks (Hive) and methodologies (fuzzing, simulations)

5. EELS – The EELS project is responsible for the main Ethereum protocol reference specification written in Python, which aims towards replacing the yellow-paper specification and being a crucial aid to the EIP process in order to provide a prototyping framework for new updates.
   Check out the Devcon SEA 2024 talk on EELS.

   Preferred skills: Spec writing, technical documentation, formal verification

6. Geth – Geth (go-ethereum) is a Go implementation of Ethereum – a gateway into the decentralized web. Geth has been a core part of Ethereum since the very beginning. Geth was one of the original Ethereum implementations making it the most battle-hardened and tested client.
   Geth is an Ethereum execution client meaning it handles transactions, deployment and execution of smart contracts and contains an embedded computer known as the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Running Geth alongside a consensus client turns a computer into an Ethereum node.
   You can find more information on Geth’s website.

   Preferred skills: Go, devp2p

7. Account Abstraction – The AA team focuses on the development, growth and coordination efforts related to account abstraction and chain abstraction, which started via the ERC-4337 standard, and continue through additional standards and protocol level changes on L1 as well as L2s.
   The team is responsible for research and development of various components and standards of account abstraction, chain abstraction and cross-L2 communication. It also supports entities in the ecosystem that are building on top of these standards, while advocating for their overall adoption in the space through education, conferences, grants and other growth strategies.

   Preferred skills: Solidity, EVM, ERC4337, wallet design

8. Generalist – If you have a specific project in mind that deals with the general Ethereum governance process or another core protocol project, propose it!

   Skills: This role is for exceptional individuals with specific projects in mind and intimate familiarity with the Ethereum governance process.