How to Apply to The Solana Foundation

11 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 9 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • The Solana Foundation is a Swiss non-profit Stiftung in Zug, structurally separate from the venture-backed Solana Labs and from independent ecosystem companies such as Phantom, Magic Eden, Jupiter, Jito, and Backpack.
  • Foundation roles do not include equity; compensation typically combines a base salary with a SOL-denominated grant component whose purchasing power moves with the SOL token price.
  • Anatoly Yakovenko designed the Solana protocol and Proof of History; Lily Liu has led the Foundation as Executive Director since 2022.
  • Solana's value proposition is a single high-throughput Layer 1 with low fees, in deliberate contrast to Ethereum's Layer 2 rollup-centric scaling strategy.
  • The 2021 to 2023 outages and the FTX collapse caused real reputational damage; the 2024 recovery, the Firedancer validator client, BlackRock's BUIDL on Solana, and the memecoin-driven activity surge have largely restored momentum but not erased the history.
  • The Foundation uses Ashby as its ATS at jobs.ashbyhq.com/solana-foundation, with a remote-first globally distributed workforce and English as the primary working language.
  • Crypto regulation is improving in the United States under the 2025 Trump administration and SEC chair Paul Atkins, but spot Solana ETF approval and broader rules remain uncertain as of early 2026.
  • Apply with eyes open: the work is genuinely interesting and globally consequential, the bar is high, and the industry's volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and reputational complexity are real and ongoing.

About The Solana Foundation

The Solana Foundation is a Swiss non-profit Stiftung headquartered in Zug, Switzerland — the same crypto-friendly canton that hosts the Ethereum Foundation — and exists to support the growth, decentralization, security, and adoption of the Solana blockchain. It was established in 2019 by Anatoly Yakovenko, the engineer who designed the Solana protocol and its Proof of History consensus innovation, together with Raj Gokal and Eric Williams. The Solana mainnet beta went live in March 2020. The Foundation is governed by a board of typically around five members and is led on a day-to-day basis by Executive Director Lily Liu, who took the role in 2022. It is important to understand the structural separation up front. The Solana Foundation is not the same entity as Solana Labs, which is a separate commercial company also co-founded by Yakovenko and Gokal that handles much of the core protocol engineering and operates as a venture-backed business with equity. Solana Labs, headquartered around the San Francisco Bay Area with significant remote presence, employs roughly 150 to 200 people. The Foundation itself runs a leaner team in the range of fifty to one hundred employees focused on grants, ecosystem development, developer relations, marketing, communications, events such as the annual Breakpoint conference, legal, and operations. Many roles you may see on the Foundation's job board reflect this non-profit ecosystem mandate rather than direct protocol engineering. The technology context matters. Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain that markets itself on consumer-grade throughput and low fees, with a stated theoretical capacity above 50,000 transactions per second, real-world throughput typically in the low thousands, and per-transaction costs measured in fractions of a US cent. Its Proof of History timestamping combined with Proof of Stake validation underpins its scaling thesis. Solana's strategic bet is fundamentally different from Ethereum's: a single high-performance Layer 1 rather than a Layer 2 rollup ecosystem. That bet has been tested. Between September 2021 and February 2023 the network suffered a series of outages, including a fourteen-hour halt in 2021, that damaged credibility. The November 2022 collapse of FTX, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried and trading firm Alameda Research had been highly visible Solana promoters and large SOL holders, drove the SOL token down more than ninety-five percent from its 2021 peak. The 2024 recovery was extraordinary. SOL reclaimed levels above two hundred dollars in 2024 from a December 2022 trough near eight dollars, decentralized exchange volume on Solana periodically exceeded Ethereum's, the Firedancer validator client from Jump Crypto delivered a major scaling milestone, the Saga and Seeker mobile devices integrated wallets and a DApp store, Solana Pay expanded merchant adoption, and BlackRock's BUIDL tokenized treasury fund expanded onto Solana. The chain also became the dominant venue for the 2024 memecoin wave through Pump.fun and tokens such as BONK, WIF, and POPCAT, which created enormous user activity and equally significant reputational debate. Spot Solana ETF filings from VanEck, 21Shares, and others remain pending with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as of early 2026, and the broader US regulatory posture toward crypto has become friendlier under the second Trump administration and SEC chair Paul Atkins. None of that erases the volatility, the regulatory uncertainty, or the legacy stigma. Hiring at the Foundation should be evaluated with all of that on the table.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Start at the official Solana Foundation careers page hosted on Ashby at jobs

    Start at the official Solana Foundation careers page hosted on Ashby at jobs.ashbyhq.com/solana-foundation and verify any posting against that source before responding to any recruiter outreach, since crypto recruiting is a frequent target of impersonation and phishing.

  2. 2
    Identify whether the role is genuinely Solana Foundation, Solana Labs, or an eco

    Identify whether the role is genuinely Solana Foundation, Solana Labs, or an ecosystem company such as Phantom, Magic Eden, Jupiter, Jito, or Backpack; these are different employers with different compensation models and different equity or token structures.

  3. 3
    Tailor a concise one to two page resume to the specific function: ecosystem and

    Tailor a concise one to two page resume to the specific function: ecosystem and grants roles want demonstrated community or venture experience, developer relations roles want shipped open-source work and public talks, and marketing or communications roles want measurable launches and a portfolio of work.

  4. 4
    Front-load the most credible signal you have: a deployed Solana program in produ

    Front-load the most credible signal you have: a deployed Solana program in production, a meaningful pull request to anza-xyz/agave or to Firedancer, a widely used Anchor framework contribution, a dApp with real on-chain volume, or prior work at a recognizable crypto employer.

  5. 5
    Submit your application directly through the Ashby portal; a referral from someo

    Submit your application directly through the Ashby portal; a referral from someone genuinely inside the Foundation, Solana Labs, or a major ecosystem team can move you through the queue faster but is never a substitute for a credible track record.

  6. 6
    Expect a recruiter screen of around thirty minutes within roughly one to three w

    Expect a recruiter screen of around thirty minutes within roughly one to three weeks of applying, with international candidates sometimes moving faster due to the Foundation's distributed remote-first staffing model.

  7. 7
    Plan for a focused technical or functional screen, then two to four virtual roun

    Plan for a focused technical or functional screen, then two to four virtual rounds covering craft, collaboration, ecosystem fluency, and a deep dive into your most relevant prior work; Foundation interviews tend to be shorter and more targeted than typical big tech loops.

  8. 8
    Engineering, research, and protocol-adjacent candidates should expect detailed q

    Engineering, research, and protocol-adjacent candidates should expect detailed questioning on Solana runtime architecture, account model, parallel transaction execution through Sealevel, fee markets, validator economics, MEV through Jito, and the rationale behind specific protocol choices.

  9. 9
    A final round usually involves a senior leader, a director, or in some cases the

    A final round usually involves a senior leader, a director, or in some cases the Executive Director for senior or strategic hires, focused on motivation, alignment with the Foundation's non-profit ecosystem mandate, and a candid view of how you think about decentralization and ecosystem stewardship.

  10. 10
    Offer timelines vary; expect roughly three to eight weeks from first screen to o

    Offer timelines vary; expect roughly three to eight weeks from first screen to offer, with compensation discussions covering base salary, any SOL grant component, vesting schedule, and jurisdiction-specific employment paperwork through the Foundation's Swiss entity or local employer-of-record arrangements.

Resume Tips for The Solana Foundation

recommended

Lead with quantified, on-chain or ecosystem-relevant impact: total value locked

Lead with quantified, on-chain or ecosystem-relevant impact: total value locked influenced, transactions processed, validators onboarded, grants administered, developers activated, hackathon participants, or measurable adoption numbers rather than vague claims of leadership.

recommended

Name specific Solana ecosystem tooling honestly: Rust, Anchor, Solana CLI, web3

Name specific Solana ecosystem tooling honestly: Rust, Anchor, Solana CLI, web3.js or @solana/web3.js, Helius, Triton One, Jito-Solana, Firedancer, Geyser plugins, Token-2022, compressed NFTs, and Solana Mobile Stack only if you have actually used them in shipped work.

recommended

If you have written or audited Solana programs in Rust, surface this prominently

If you have written or audited Solana programs in Rust, surface this prominently with links to deployed program addresses, GitHub repositories, or audit reports from firms such as OtterSec, Halborn, Trail of Bits, or Neodyme.

recommended

For developer relations or ecosystem roles, link talks at Breakpoint, Solana Hac

For developer relations or ecosystem roles, link talks at Breakpoint, Solana Hacker Houses, ETHDenver, Devcon, or Consensus, plus tutorial content with measurable views, completions, or downstream developer activation.

recommended

For grants, ecosystem, or business roles, list specific projects you have funded

For grants, ecosystem, or business roles, list specific projects you have funded, partnerships you have closed, or programs you have run with concrete outcomes such as recipients, capital deployed, projects launched, or follow-on funding raised.

recommended

Cite open-source contributions with direct links: a merged pull request to anza-

Cite open-source contributions with direct links: a merged pull request to anza-xyz/agave, solana-foundation, solana-labs, anchor-lang, or to a major ecosystem repository carries far more weight than internal-only project descriptions.

recommended

Acknowledge prior crypto experience honestly: name the protocols, the role, and

Acknowledge prior crypto experience honestly: name the protocols, the role, and the time period, and be prepared to discuss what worked, what failed, and what you learned, including any exposure to projects that later struggled or unwound.

recommended

For non-engineering candidates, frame impact in measurable launch outcomes, comm

For non-engineering candidates, frame impact in measurable launch outcomes, community growth, media coverage in tier-one outlets, or revenue and adoption metrics rather than generic responsibility statements.

recommended

Avoid hype-laden buzzword resumes; the Foundation reviews many crypto-native app

Avoid hype-laden buzzword resumes; the Foundation reviews many crypto-native applications and screens for genuine craft, not for terms like Web3, decentralization, or community theater that are not backed by evidence.

recommended

Keep formatting clean and plain: a single-column PDF, selectable text, no graphi

Keep formatting clean and plain: a single-column PDF, selectable text, no graphics, no token logos, no photos for international applications, and a recognizable file name such as Surname_Givenname_Role.pdf.

ATS System: Ashby

The Solana Foundation uses Ashby as its applicant tracking system, with public postings hosted at jobs.ashbyhq.com/solana-foundation. Ashby is a modern, well-engineered ATS that parses standard PDF resumes reliably, supports structured application questions, and is widely adopted across the crypto and AI startup ecosystem. It does not require resume gimmickry to pass screening; clean formatting, accurate keyword usage, and complete answers to the application questions are enough.

  • Submit a clean single-column PDF with selectable text rather than a scanned image so Ashby's parser can extract content cleanly into the candidate profile.
  • Mirror the language used in the specific job description: explicit terms like Anchor, Sealevel, Geyser, validator, RPC, Token-2022, Solana Pay, or compressed NFTs rather than generic paraphrases.
  • Avoid headers, footers, multi-column layouts, text inside images, or decorative fonts that can confuse parsing or be discarded silently.
  • Use a recognizable file name such as Surname_Givenname_Role.pdf so reviewers can find your application quickly when discussing candidates.
  • Answer every supplemental application question fully; Ashby surfaces these directly to reviewers and incomplete answers are a common silent rejection signal.
  • Include direct working hyperlinks to GitHub, your deployed Solana program addresses on a block explorer such as Solscan or Solana Explorer, your portfolio, and any relevant talks or publications.
  • If you can credibly list a referral inside the Solana Foundation, Solana Labs, or a major ecosystem team in the application form, do so; Ashby surfaces referral context to recruiters.

Interview Culture

Solana Foundation interviews reflect the culture of a focused, mission-driven non-profit operating in one of the most volatile and fast-moving industries in technology.

Loops are typically smaller and more targeted than at large traditional tech companies, weighted toward demonstrated craft and ecosystem fluency rather than pure brand-name credentials. Engineering, protocol, and infrastructure candidates should expect detailed and pointed questioning on Solana runtime internals, the account and program model, parallel execution through Sealevel, transaction lifecycle, validator economics, MEV considerations through Jito, and the trade-offs behind specific architectural choices. Vague answers are a fast disqualifier. Ecosystem, grants, developer relations, marketing, and operations interviews emphasize directness and concrete evidence. Reviewers ask why you chose a specific approach, what you would do differently with hindsight, how you measured success, and where you got it wrong. Senior rounds, sometimes with the Executive Director or a board-adjacent leader, tend to focus on motivation, alignment with the Foundation's non-profit ecosystem mandate, your honest view of crypto's regulatory and reputational realities, and how you think about decentralization, neutrality, and long-term stewardship rather than short-term hype. The working culture is remote-first and globally distributed, with the Swiss legal entity in Zug and concentrations of staff across the United States, Europe, and Asia. English is the primary working language. Coordination across time zones is real and ongoing, and candidates should expect both the freedom and the responsibility of distributed work. Compensation and total rewards conversations should be approached with eyes open: the Foundation is not equity-issuing, packages typically combine a base salary with some SOL-denominated component depending on role and seniority, and the SOL price has historically swung dramatically in both directions.

What The Solana Foundation Looks For

  • Demonstrated craft in your discipline with clear evidence of personal contribution rather than committee credit, whether that is shipped code, executed grant programs, measurable developer activation, or successful launches.
  • Genuine ecosystem fluency: an honest and specific understanding of how Solana works, what differentiates it from Ethereum and other Layer 1s, and where the network's real strengths and real weaknesses lie.
  • Strong fundamentals where the role requires them, including Rust and systems engineering for protocol-adjacent work, distributed systems for infrastructure roles, and rigorous analytical thinking for grants and ecosystem roles.
  • Open-source credibility: real contributions to anza-xyz/agave, Firedancer, Anchor, major ecosystem libraries, or your own published work with measurable adoption rather than private repositories nobody has used.
  • Commercial and applied judgment for ecosystem, business, and partnerships roles, including the ability to evaluate projects, allocate grant capital wisely, and translate ecosystem activity into long-term network health.
  • Resilience and intellectual honesty about crypto's history, including the 2022 to 2023 Solana outages, the FTX and Alameda Research association, the memecoin culture and its trade-offs, and the ongoing regulatory uncertainty even after the friendlier 2024 to 2025 environment.
  • Mission alignment with a non-profit Foundation mandate rather than an equity-driven startup mindset, including a willingness to act as a steward of the ecosystem rather than an extractive participant.
  • Strong written and verbal English communication for distributed remote collaboration, with multilingual capability viewed as a meaningful asset given the global Solana developer community.
  • Comfort with ambiguity, fast iteration, and the operational rhythms of crypto, including major event cycles such as Breakpoint, mainnet upgrades, and rapid response to market or network events.
  • Personal integrity and an ability to operate in a regulated, scrutinized industry where reputational risk for the Foundation and the broader Solana ecosystem is taken seriously.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Solana Foundation the same as Solana Labs?
No. The Solana Foundation is a Swiss non-profit Stiftung based in Zug, Switzerland, focused on grants, ecosystem development, developer relations, communications, and events. Solana Labs is a separate venture-backed commercial company, also co-founded by Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, that handles substantial protocol engineering work and operates with equity. Job postings, compensation structure, and culture differ materially, so verify which entity you are actually applying to.
Who runs the Solana Foundation?
The Foundation is governed by a board of typically around five members and is led on a day-to-day basis by Executive Director Lily Liu, who took the role in 2022. Anatoly Yakovenko remains the public face of the broader Solana ecosystem in his role as a Solana Labs co-founder and the original architect of the protocol, but the Foundation itself operates as a structured non-profit rather than a CEO-led company.
Does the Solana Foundation offer equity?
No. As a Swiss non-profit Stiftung, the Foundation does not issue equity. Compensation typically combines a competitive base salary with a SOL-denominated component whose value fluctuates with the SOL token price. Candidates should evaluate offers with that volatility in mind, ask explicit questions about vesting and cliff periods, and consider tax treatment in their home jurisdiction.
Where is the Solana Foundation located and is the work remote?
The Foundation's legal headquarters is in Zug, Switzerland, the same crypto-friendly canton that hosts the Ethereum Foundation. The workforce is remote-first and globally distributed across the United States, Europe, and Asia, typically engaged either through the Swiss entity or through local employer-of-record arrangements depending on jurisdiction.
How does the FTX collapse affect Solana Foundation hiring today?
FTX and Alameda Research were highly visible Solana promoters and large SOL holders before FTX's November 2022 collapse, and the SOL token fell more than ninety-five percent from its 2021 peak in the aftermath. The Foundation has since significantly recovered both in network metrics and ecosystem activity, but candid reviewers will expect you to engage honestly with the history rather than pretend it did not happen. Treat the FTX legacy as background context that informed how the ecosystem matured, not as a disqualifying fact about Solana itself.
What is Firedancer and why does it matter?
Firedancer is an alternative Solana validator client developed by Jump Trading Group's crypto arm, Jump Crypto. It was a major scaling and decentralization milestone for the network when it began operating in 2024 because validator client diversity reduces single-implementation risk, similar to the multi-client model that Ethereum maintains. Engineering candidates are frequently asked about validator architecture and the trade-offs between the original Agave client lineage and Firedancer.
How does Solana compare to Ethereum and other Layer 1 blockchains?
Solana is a single high-throughput Layer 1 with low fees, in deliberate contrast to Ethereum's Layer 2 rollup ecosystem strategy that includes Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, zkSync, Polygon, Scroll, Linea, and Starknet. Other competitive Layer 1s include Cardano, Polkadot, Avalanche, Cosmos, NEAR, Aptos, Sui, Sei, and Berachain. Be ready to discuss the trade-offs between monolithic and modular blockchain designs, validator hardware requirements, and consensus differences honestly.
What ATS does the Solana Foundation use?
The Solana Foundation uses Ashby, with public job postings hosted at jobs.ashbyhq.com/solana-foundation. Ashby is a modern ATS that parses standard PDF resumes reliably and surfaces structured application question answers directly to reviewers. Submit a clean single-column PDF, mirror the keywords used in the job description, and answer every supplemental question completely.
How should I think about the memecoin culture on Solana?
Solana became the dominant chain for the 2024 memecoin wave through Pump.fun and tokens such as BONK, WIF, and POPCAT. This drove enormous user activity, transaction volume, and fee revenue but also generated significant reputational debate and consumer-protection scrutiny. The Foundation does not endorse specific tokens, but candidates should be ready to discuss the trade-off between permissionless innovation and the genuine consumer-harm concerns that memecoin trading raises, without either celebrating speculation or dismissing the legitimate user activity.
What is the regulatory environment for Solana in 2026?
The US regulatory posture toward crypto became materially friendlier in 2025 under the second Trump administration and SEC chair Paul Atkins. Spot Solana ETF filings from VanEck, 21Shares, and others remain pending with the SEC as of early 2026, and broader rules continue to evolve. Outside the United States, the European Union's MiCA framework, Singapore's MAS regime, and various Asian jurisdictions each present their own rules. Candidates should expect crypto regulation to remain a live topic throughout their tenure.
What are some of the major projects in the Solana ecosystem?
Major ecosystem projects include Phantom and Solflare and Backpack on the wallet side; Jupiter, Raydium, Orca, Phoenix DEX, and Drift Protocol in DeFi; Marinade and Jito Network for staking and MEV; Magic Eden and Tensor for NFTs; USDC, USDT, PYUSD, and FDUSD for stablecoins; BlackRock's BUIDL, Maple Finance, and Ondo Finance OUSG for tokenized real-world assets; and Helium and Render Network for decentralized physical infrastructure. These are independent companies, not part of the Foundation.
Should I learn Rust to work at the Solana Foundation?
It depends on the role. Solana programs are written primarily in Rust, often with the Anchor framework, and protocol-adjacent or developer-relations engineering roles will expect strong Rust proficiency. Many Foundation roles in grants, ecosystem, marketing, communications, legal, and operations do not require Rust at all but do reward genuine technical literacy and ecosystem fluency. Read the specific job description carefully and apply where your real skills match.

Open Positions

The Solana Foundation currently has 9 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 9 open positions at The Solana Foundation

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Sources

  1. Solana Foundation Official Website —
  2. Solana Foundation Careers on Ashby —
  3. Solana Documentation —
  4. Anza Agave Validator Client Repository —
  5. Firedancer Validator Client by Jump Crypto —
  6. Lily Liu Appointed Executive Director of Solana Foundation —
  7. Anatoly Yakovenko Solana Whitepaper —
  8. BlackRock BUIDL Expands to Solana —
  9. VanEck Spot Solana ETF Filing —
  10. Solana Breakpoint Conference —
  11. Anchor Framework Documentation —
  12. Solana Mobile Saga and Seeker —
  13. Solana Network Performance Reports —