Sovereign Tech Fellowship

Benefits & funding

• Freelance contracts: 3 to 12 months, 6 to 32 hours per week. The hourly rate is negotiated during selection and is based on market rates, qualifications and experience.
• Employment contracts at Sovereign Tech Agency GmbH: two years, 20 to 40 hours per week chosen by the fellow, €64,000 to €82,000 per year for a full-time position under the German public sector collective agreement (TVöD-Bund), plus 30 days of vacation.
• The 2026 round planned to hire up to twelve fellows in total across both tracks, with the employment side limited to a small team of up to three positions at Sovereign Tech Agency GmbH; 14 fellows were ultimately taken on, two as employees and twelve as freelancers.
• Documentation Sprint 2026: up to six additional technical writer places, running roughly three to six months within the year, applied for through the same process.
• Work is remote. Employed fellows may also use the agency office in Berlin.
• Fellows meet the agency monthly in a one-to-one to review progress. Freelancers invoice monthly against timesheets and have no paid leave.

Eligibility

• Maintainers: maintainer of or contributor to at least three FOSS projects, and on at least one of them a maintainer with permission to merge pull requests or trigger releases.
• Community managers: community manager for at least one FOSS project, with work the agency can verify.
• Technical writers: visible and verifiable documentation contributions to at least three technical projects or components.
• Projects must have public repositories under an OSI-approved or FSF Free/Libre licence and be widely used foundational technology — early-stage prototypes and user-facing applications are out of scope, while package maintenance qualifies where the impact is significant in scope.
• Freelance applications are open worldwide with no nationality requirement. The employment track is open only to people who reside in Germany and are authorised to work there.
• Strong English is required. Applications are accepted in English only; German language skills are not needed.
• Applicants apply for themselves. A company cannot apply on behalf of a maintainer it employs.
• No degree, age or minimum years of experience are set; the bar is a demonstrable track record in the projects named above.

Application process

1. 1
   Confirm the project or projects qualify: public repository, OSI-approved or FSF Free/Libre licence, and real-world use as foundational infrastructure.
2. 2
   Choose the track — a freelance contract, open worldwide, or employment at the agency, open only to those living and authorised to work in Germany — and the role applied for. Applicants whose work spans maintenance, community and documentation may apply across roles.
3. 3
   Prepare the application in English: the projects, the applicant’s role and permissions in them, and the work to be carried out during the fellowship. Technical writers applying to the Documentation Sprint describe the documentation project and its scope, whether writing from scratch, revising mature documentation, or building API documentation and the processes around it.
4. 4
   Submit through the application form on the fellowship page before the deadline — 6 April 2026, 23:59 CET, for the 2026 round.
5. 5
   Selected candidates are invited to video interviews, held from 27 April 2026 in the 2026 round.
6. 6
   Offers are communicated by 15 May 2026, and contracts begin from 26 May 2026 depending on availability.

Program timeline

1. Application deadline, 23:59 CET (2026 round)

   Apr 6, 2026

2. Video interviews begin

   Apr 27, 2026

3. Final decisions and offers communicated

   May 15, 2026

4. Contracts begin, depending on availability

   May 26, 2026

5. the agency recruits further fellows and announces the details through its newsletter and social channels; no date has been published

   After the 2026 round