Sovereign Tech Fellowship (freelance contractor)

Pays open source maintainers, community managers and technical writers directly as freelance contractors for 3 to 12 months at 6 to 32 hours a week; hourly rate negotiated, not published.

What you get

Not publishedCash

“The length of the contract for freelance positions is flexible, ranging from 3 to 12 months, with flexible weekly working hours from 6 to 32 hours. The hourly rate will be negotiated during the selection process and will be based on market rates, qualifications, and experience.”

Strings attachedFOSS licensing is mandatory for supported code and documentation, OSI-approved or FSF Free/Libre for code and no Non-Commercial or No-Derivatives clauses for documentation. Fellows must not otherwise be paid for the same work for the fellowship's duration, and must be willing to participate in Sovereign Tech Agency conferences, events, interviews and evaluation reporting, and to join a maintainers community.

Can you apply

VC backingnot stated

Referral or partnerNot required

Registered companyNot required

IndividualsEligible

Open sourceProject must be open source

CountriesOpen worldwide

Before you applyMaintainers must maintain or contribute to at least three FOSS projects and be a maintainer (able to merge pull requests or publish a release) on at least one. Community managers must manage at least one FOSS project with verifiable public activity. Technical writers must have visible, verifiable documentation contributions to at least three technical projects. One application per person. Applications in English.

You are not otherwise being paid for the same work for the duration of the fellowship. You are not applying on behalf of an organization seeking funding for maintainers it employs. Please consider submitting a proposal to the Sovereign Tech Fund instead.

When

Not open right now, and no next round has been announced.

Past rounds

2026 roundclosed 6 Apr 2026

What Sovereign Tech Agency funds

German public investor in open digital base technologies: the libraries, package managers, protocol implementations, encryption tooling and developer infrastructure other software depends on. Funds maintenance, security and sustainability work in the public interest, explicitly not prototypes or user-facing apps.

Everything Sovereign Tech Agency funds →

Details

Separated from the employment option because the gates and terms differ: the freelance option has no country requirement and no published rate, the employment option requires being located in Germany and publishes a salary band. This is compensation for maintenance, community management and documentation work rather than a project grant, so no amount range is published for this option. Up to twelve fellows in total across both options. Applications for the 2026 round closed on April 6, 2026; NLnet-style recurring recruitment is stated as the intent but no next date is published.

Apply on Sovereign Tech Agency