OPAQUE has opened applications for its AgenTrust Fellowship, a six-month paid remote program offering selected fellows between $30,000 and $50,000 to work on open standards for verifiable AI agents.
Applications are open for the inaugural AgenTrust Fellowship 2026, a paid remote AI fellowship for engineers, researchers and AI governance professionals working on trustworthy and verifiable AI agents.
The fellowship is fully remote, runs for six months and requires a commitment of around 20 hours per week. Selected fellows will receive a $30,000 to $50,000 stipend for the full program.
Applications close on August 29, 2026, and the fellowship begins on September 15, 2026, running through March 2027.
Only three to five fellows will be selected for the inaugural cohort.
Image source: Envato
The fellowship was launched by OPAQUE, a company working on confidential AI and verifiable AI governance.
Participants will contribute directly to the open-source AgenTrust ecosystem, which is developing standards and technical infrastructure that can help organizations verify how AI agents behave and whether approved policies were followed.
Fellows will work across areas including:
- AI agent identity
- AI governance and compliance
- runtime verification
- confidential computing
- protection of models and data during execution
- cryptographic evidence of AI agent behavior
The available project tracks include TRACE, Confidential MCP, Confidential A2A, Agent Manifest, Model Manifest (Weight Custody) and the Agent Governance Toolkit (AGT).
The fellowship is a community and standards program rather than an internship, research grant or hiring pipeline. Participants can keep their existing jobs or studies while taking part.
OPAQUE is particularly looking for:
- security engineers with experience working with agentic AI systems
- PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in formal verification, distributed systems or attestation
- AI governance and compliance professionals who can translate audit requirements into machine-executable policies
The program therefore brings together both technical specialists and professionals working on the governance and compliance side of AI.
Each fellow will receive a $30,000 to $50,000 stipend for the six-month term and work alongside Imran Siddique, OPAQUE's Chief Platform Officer and creator of the Agent Governance Toolkit.
Fellows will have weekly one-on-one meetings with Siddique and monthly meetings with the full cohort.
Participants are expected to complete at least one merged pull request or specification contribution, as well as a public technical artifact such as a blog post, specification document or conference talk.
Applicants must complete the online application and submit a two-page technical proposal grounded in a specific repository within the AgenTrust ecosystem.
The proposal should identify a specific open issue or specification gap the applicant wants to address.
Applicants are also asked to provide:
- a GitHub handle
- their preferred AgenTrust project track
- relevant public work or contributions
- a resume or CV
Previous public contributions to AgenTrust repositories, including issues, pull requests and discussions, can strengthen an application.
Applicants must also be able to commit approximately 20 hours per week for six months and be engaged as an independent contractor to receive the stipend.
OPAQUE notes that it is currently unable to support F-1 student visa holders who require CPT or OPT authorization for the program.
Key Details
Application deadline: August 29, 2026
Program start: September 15, 2026
Duration: Six months, through March 2027
Commitment: Approximately 20 hours per week
Stipend: $30,000–$50,000 per fellow
Format: Fully remote
Cohort: 3–5 fellows
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