TL;DR
Welcome back to Dev Opportunity Radar.
This is a weekly series where I share opportunities, resources, and interesting finds that I come across, with the goal of helping people discover things they might otherwise miss.
The response to the first edition was far more encouraging than I expected. Thank you to everyone who read, commented, shared feedback, and followed along.
This week's edition includes a fully-funded builder residency in Finland, an open science research program, a $60,000 hackathon, a bonus learning event, and a hands-on course for building production-ready LLM applications.
If you've come across an opportunity, resource, community, program, or event that deserves more attention, feel free to share it in the comments.
If I feature it in a future edition, I'll make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.
Hopefully this becomes less of my radar and more of our radar over time.
Table of Contents
β‘ Quick Scan
| Opportunity | Organization | Type | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| FR8 | FR8 | Builder Residency | Rolling |
| Summer of Open AI Research (SOAR) | EleutherAI | Research Program | June 8 |
| Google Cloud Rapid Agent Hackathon | Google Cloud | Hackathon ($60K Prize Pool) | June 12 |
| Microsoft AI Skills Fest | Microsoft | AI Learning Event | June 8-12 |
Resource Highlight: LLM Zoomcamp - a free, hands-on course covering RAG, vector search, and AI agents, with a live cohort starting June 8, graded assignments, a capstone project, and a certificate for eligible participants.
π Still Open From Last Week
One opportunity from last week's radar is still accepting applications.
Interactivity Research Grants by Thinking Machines remain open until June 19, 2026.
I'm mentioning it because some people may be discovering this series for the first time through this edition, and I'd rather point you to a still-open opportunity than assume you've already seen it.
I also don't want a good opportunity to disappear from the radar just because a new edition came out.
The program offers up to $100,000 in funding plus $25,000 in Tinker credits for research focused on human-AI interaction and collaboration.
π Learn More | How to Apply
π This Week's Opportunities
Here are a few opportunities I came across this week that I thought were worth sharing.
π FR8
Who it's for: Builders, researchers, founders, and technically curious people who want to spend a few months working intensely on ambitious ideas.
What stands out: Accommodation, food, flights, tools, and community are fully covered. Participants spend three months immersed in a highly focused environment alongside other builders from around the world.
Format: In-person residency program in Helsinki, Finland.
Funding: Participation is free. FR8 also offers optional funding of $100,000 on an uncapped SAFE plus 2% equity.
I thought this one was particularly interesting because it feels less like a traditional accelerator and more like an environment designed for people who want to go all-in on an idea. You don't need a startup or even a fully formed idea to apply.
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Next Cohort: August 24 - November 21, 2026
Applications: Rolling admissions
π Learn More | Apply
π Summer of Open AI Research (SOAR)
Who it's for: Developers, students, and aspiring researchers interested in AI research, including people with little or no previous research experience.
What stands out: Participants work on real research projects under the mentorship of experienced researchers and receive credit for their contributions, which may result in publication.
Format: Five-week fully remote research mentorship program organized by EleutherAI.
Research areas: Interpretability, AI safety, reasoning, representation learning, alignment, AI for science, information retrieval, computer vision, and generative modeling.
I liked this one because many research opportunities expect applicants to already have research experience. SOAR explicitly encourages applications from self-taught researchers and people looking to gain their first research experience.
Location: Online
Deadline: June 8, 2026
π Learn More | Apply
π Google Cloud Rapid Agent Hackathon
Who it's for: Developers, builders, students, and AI enthusiasts interested in building real-world AI agents.
What stands out: Participants build task-oriented agents powered by Gemini and Google Cloud Agent Builder while competing for a share of $60,000 in prizes.
Focus: Building agents that can reason, plan, and take actions rather than simply answer questions.
Partner Tracks: Arize, Elastic, Fivetran, GitLab, MongoDB, and Dynatrace.
I thought this one was worth sharing because it focuses on agentic systems rather than traditional chatbot projects. If you've been looking for an excuse to experiment with MCP, agent workflows, or Gemini-powered applications, this could be a good opportunity to build something interesting.
Location: Online
Deadline: June 12, 2026
Prize Pool: $60,000
π Bonus Opportunity
Microsoft AI Skills Fest
Who it's for: Developers, students, business professionals, technical teams, and anyone looking to build practical AI skills.
What stands out: Complete learning paths, attend live sessions, participate in the Agents League Hackathon, earn badges, and potentially qualify for a free Microsoft Certification exam voucher.
Format: Free week-long virtual event featuring role-based learning tracks, expert-led sessions, and hands-on AI activities.
I thought this was worth mentioning because it combines learning, certification preparation, and hands-on building in a single event. Whether you're interested in AI-assisted coding, building agents, using AI at work, or preparing for a certification exam, there's a dedicated path for different experience levels.
Dates: June 8-12, 2026
Bonus perks: Credly badges, certification exam vouchers (for eligible participants), hackathon participation, and prize opportunities.
π Resources Worth Checking Out
Not every useful find comes with an application deadline.
Here's one resource worth checking out this week.
LLM Zoomcamp
Who it's for: Developers, data engineers, ML practitioners, and anyone interested in building practical LLM applications.
What stands out: The course focuses on building real applications rather than just learning concepts. Participants work through topics like RAG, vector search, AI agents, evaluation, monitoring, and orchestration, then build a capstone project of their own.
Topics covered: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embeddings, vector search, AI agents, function calling, hybrid search, reranking, evaluation, monitoring, and end-to-end LLM application development.
I wanted to include this because a lot of AI learning resources stop at prompting. This one focuses on building complete systems and gives you the chance to apply everything through a final project.
If you join the live cohort, you'll also get graded homework, a leaderboard, peer reviews, and the opportunity to earn a certificate by completing the project and review requirements. If you don't want the deadlines, all of the material is available in a self-paced format as well.
Format: Free, open-source course with both live cohort and self-paced options.
Live Cohort: Starts June 8, 2026 (graded assignments, leaderboard, peer reviews, and certificate eligibility)
Cost: Free (aside from small API usage costs if you run the examples yourself)
π Course Repository | Register
π Community Finds
No community finds this week.
The first edition was only published recently, so that's completely understandable.
That said, if you shared something and I didn't hear back from you, there's a chance I never saw it. From what I've learned, DEV sometimes filters comments that contain raw URLs before I get a chance to view them.
If that's what happened, I'm sorry.
I'd still love for this section to become a regular part of the series.
If you've come across an opportunity, fellowship, grant, hackathon, conference, community, or resource that more developers should know about, feel free to share it in the comments.
If I feature it in a future edition, I'll make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.
Small note: If you're sharing an opportunity, please avoid posting raw URLs directly in the comments. DEV sometimes filters them before I get a chance to see them.
Instead, use the opportunity name as the link and add a short description of what it is and who it's for.
For example:
[Opportunity Name](https://example.com)
Short description of what it is and who it's for.
This helps make sure I actually see your suggestion.
π Until Next Friday
Thank you again to everyone who read, commented, shared feedback, and followed along after the first edition. It genuinely means a lot.
The goal of this series hasn't changed:
Help people discover opportunities they otherwise might have missed.
I'll keep doing my best to make these weekly editions useful and worth reading.
If you end up applying to any of the opportunities featured here, I'd love to hear about it.
And if there's a particular opportunity or resource that stood out to you, let me know. It helps me understand what kinds of things are most useful to include in future editions.
I'd also love feedback on the format as the series grows.
What's working?
What isn't?
What would make future editions more useful?
Got an opportunity, grant, fellowship, hackathon, conference, resource, or community worth sharing?
Drop it in the comments.
If you'd like to catch future editions, consider following me on DEV and bookmarking the series.
I'll be back next Friday with more opportunities, resources, and community finds.
See you next Friday π
Top comments (7)
Good stuff! I was hoping if you want to post these weekly under my DEVenger org? I am planning on growing and expanding upon the usage of the org on DEV. Let me know Hemapriya!
Thank you so much, Francis π
I'd definitely be interested in that.
The support from you and everyone in the community since the first edition has genuinely meant a lot, and I'd love to be part of the DEVengers π
Appreciate it Hemapriya! I sent an invite via email. Let me know if anything!
If you are posting anything under the DEVengers org other than the weekly opportunity radar, let me know so I can review it first before sending!
Just accepted the invite, Francis!
Excited to be part of it, and I'll definitely let you know if I plan to post anything under the DEVengers org beyond Dev Opportunity Radar π
What opportunities, communities, grants, fellowships, hackathons, conferences, or resources have you come across recently that deserve more attention?
I am always looking for things to include in future editions, so feel free to share anything interesting you have found. If I feature one of your finds in a future edition, I will make sure to credit you.
Small request: If you're sharing a link, please avoid posting raw URLs directly. DEV sometimes filters them before I get a chance to see the comment.
Instead, use the opportunity name as the link text, for example:
[Flow Fellowship](https://example.com)and include a short description of what it is.I have really been enjoying the AI Tinkerers events in my city. I know they are now present in more than 200 cities worldwide!
their website
Thank you for sharing this, Julien π
I hadn't come across AI Tinkerers before. This is exactly the kind of community find I'd love to include in future editions.
I'll add it to my notes for the next radar and make sure to credit you for the find π