Fellowship
The Brink fellowship is an intensive one-year program to onboard exceptional software engineers into Bitcoin protocol development. Developed and coordinated by Brink director John Newbery, the fellowship draws on John’s four years experience of contributing to Bitcoin Core, running the Chaincode Residencies and PR Review Club, and mentoring many Bitcoin open source contributors.
As a Brink fellow, you’ll spend a year working alongside John and the other Brink fellows. You’ll learn about all aspects of the Bitcoin Core system, including consensus, peer-to-peer networking, wallets and cryptography. You’ll become an effective open source contributor, and will start making contributions to the project from day one. By the end of your fellowship, you’ll have a track record of high-quality, high-impact contributions to Bitcoin Core or other open source projects, and you’ll be very well positioned to seek funding or employment to continue your open source Bitcoin career.
If you love Bitcoin and can’t imagine wanting to work on any other project, then there’s no better place to start your Bitcoin career. You’ll receive dedicated mentoring and support, be surrounded by passionate Bitcoiners, and learn by doing - making contributions to Bitcoin Core and other projects.
We’re looking for developers from all backgrounds to apply. You need to be passionate about Bitcoin and hungry to make contributions to the project. There are no specific educational requirements - evidence of prior open source contributions (code review, technical writing, etc) is far more important.
Fellows will be paid a competitive salary, with all of the benefits you’d expect for a software engineering job. The fellowship takes place in our London office, so applicants must be prepared to relocate. We may be able to help with travel and visas on a case-by-case basis.
To apply for the fellowship, please fill out the fellowship application form with some information about yourself:
- Describe some contributions you’ve made to open source projects, or any other projects you’re particularly proud of.
- Are there any projects that you’re particularly interested in working on?
- What do you want to do with the experience that you gain at the fellowship?
Good luck!
Brink is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its hiring process with applicants, whether internal or external, because of race, creed, color, age, national origin, ancestry, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, genetic information, veteran status, military status, application for military service or any other class per local, state or federal law.
Brink Fellows
Gloria Zhao
Gloria has been contributing to Bitcoin Core since March 2020. Her focus is on Bitcoin Core's peer-to-peer code, and she is currently implementing mempool package acceptance.
Grants
Bitcoin’s long-term success requires a sustainable funding model for open source developers to maintain and extend the protocol, test and review code changes, and fix critical bugs in the software. Brink was founded to support Bitcoin development and Bitcoin open source developers. Our grant program is central to that mission.
The grant program awards year-long grants to established Bitcoin protocol developers to work full time on open source Bitcoin projects. Our primary focus is on the security and stability of the base protocol, but we will also fund research and development on extending functionality, scalability and usability of Bitcoin and related projects, including Lightning and other layer two technologies.
The grant program is open to developers anywhere in the world. Grant applicants must:
- have a track record of making high-quality, security-first contributions to Bitcoin or related projects.
- be committed to transparency and accountability. Brink is a publicly funded organization, and grantees are expected to publicly commit to project deliverables and give regular public updates on progress.
- be self-motivated and self-driven. Grantees will provide regular public updates on their projects, but day-to-day will be working independently. To be successful, grantees must thrive in a no-management work environment.
- be able to work collaboratively and constructively with other open-source contributors.
- be committed to increasing the impact of their contributions, growing the developer ecosystem and scaling Bitcoin and related projects.
To apply for a Brink grant, please fill out the grant application form with the following information:
- A description of the contributions you’ve made to Bitcoin Core or other Bitcoin-related projects.
- Your current funding situation, and whether you’ve been the recipient of any other grants of funding for your open-source work.
- What project you intend to work on, including expected deliverables and timeline.
Brink is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its hiring process with applicants, whether internal or external, because of race, creed, color, age, national origin, ancestry, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, genetic information, veteran status, military status, application for military service or any other class per local, state or federal law.
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