Dev Opportunity Radar #9: A Fully Funded AI Security Residency, SF Founder Residency, Figma Campus Leaders & More

TL;DR

Welcome back to Dev Opportunity Radar.

This is a weekly series where I share opportunities, resources, communities, and interesting finds that I come across, with the goal of helping people discover things they might otherwise miss.

This week's edition features The Bridge by Entrepreneurs First, the Frontier AI Security Residency, the Figma Campus Leader Program 2026–2027, and The Missing Semester of Your CS Education, a free MIT course on the tools, workflows, and developer skills that every programmer should know.

If you're new to the series, you can now browse previous editions, search past opportunities, and explore Community Finds and Reader Updates on the Dev Opportunity Radar website. I've also written a short post about why I built it. You'll find links to both at the end of this article.

If you've discovered something through the radar, I'd love to hear about it. Whether you applied to an opportunity, joined a community, or found a resource you hadn't seen before, I'd be happy to feature your experience in a future 💙 Reader Updates section (with your permission).

And 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 one of your Community Finds in a future edition, I'll always make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.

Table of Contents

• ⚡ Quick Scan
• 🔄 Still Open From Previous Editions
• 📍 This Week's Opportunities
  • 📌 The Bridge by Entrepreneurs First
  • 📌 Frontier AI Security Residency
  • 📌 Figma Campus Leader Program 2026–2027
• 📚 Resources Worth Checking Out
  • The Missing Semester of Your CS Education
• 🌟 Community Finds
  • CALEC Volunteer and Internship Opportunities
• 💙 Reader Updates
  • ⭐ This Week's Reader Spotlight
  • 💬 Share Your Story
• 👋 Until Next Friday
• 🌐 Dev Opportunity Radar Website

⚡ Quick Scan

Opportunities

Resource Highlight

Community Find

📝 A quick note: I spend a lot of time researching and verifying every opportunity before featuring it in Dev Opportunity Radar. However, deadlines, eligibility, program details, and application requirements can change after publication. Before applying, please take a few minutes to visit the official program page, review the latest information, and confirm that you're eligible.

🔄 Still Open From Previous Editions

Before we get into this week's opportunities, here are a few from previous editions that are still accepting applications.

I've already covered these in detail, so I won't repeat everything here. If any of them catch your attention, you can find the full overview, eligibility details, and application links in the original edition.

📍 This Week's Opportunities

Here are a few opportunities I came across this week that I thought were worth sharing.

📌 The Bridge by Entrepreneurs First

Who it's for: Ambitious founders, engineers, researchers, product builders, and future startup CEOs based outside the US who want to build a venture-scale company. You don't need to have a co-founder or even a startup idea before applying.

What stands out: The Bridge is an 8-week, fully funded residency in San Francisco designed for exceptional international founders at the very beginning of their startup journey. Participants live and build together, explore ideas, meet potential co-founders, talk to users, and receive hands-on support from the Entrepreneurs First team.

I wanted to include this because most founder programs expect you to already have a company, traction, or a complete founding team. The Bridge is different. It's designed for people who are still figuring out what to build and who to build it with, while giving them the environment and support to make meaningful progress.

Another thing I like is that the residency is only the beginning. At the end of the eight weeks, teams that demonstrate strong potential can pitch to EF's Investment Committee. Selected teams receive a $250,000 pre-seed investment (in exchange for equity) and continue building in San Francisco for another three months with ongoing support from the EF team.

Duration: 8-week residency (plus an additional 3-month company-building program for funded teams)

Location: San Francisco, California

Cost: Free (housing, workspace, food, and the program are covered)

Who can apply: Exceptional founders based outside the US. You don't need an idea or a co-founder to apply.

Application Deadline: August 30, 2026

🔗 Learn More | 🔗 Apply

📌 Frontier AI Security Residency

Who it's for: Security engineers, cybersecurity professionals, hardware and embedded systems specialists, cryptography researchers, AI safety practitioners, and experienced software engineers interested in securing frontier AI systems. Prior research experience is helpful but not required, though the applied track generally expects around five or more years of industry experience.

What stands out: The Frontier AI Security Residency (FASR) is an 8-week, fully funded, in-person research and engineering residency in Cambridge, UK, run by ERA. Residents work on real-world challenges at the intersection of AI security, cybersecurity, and hardware verification, tackling problems such as securing frontier AI systems, verifying AI compute, and building mechanisms that make AI systems more trustworthy and verifiable.

I wanted to include this because most AI programs focus on building more capable models. This residency focuses on something just as important but discussed far less often: making advanced AI systems secure, verifiable, and resilient before their capabilities outpace our ability to protect them. If you're interested in the security side of AI rather than model development, opportunities like this are still relatively rare.

Another thing I like is how comprehensive the support is. The residency covers travel, accommodation, visas, workspace, and meals during working hours, pairs each resident with an experienced mentor and a Research Manager, and culminates in a research symposium where participants present their work. Residents also receive a pro-rated salary (based on an annual rate of £34,125), making it possible to focus entirely on the research without worrying about day-to-day expenses.

Duration: 8 weeks (October 12 – December 4, 2026)

Location: Cambridge, UK (primarily in person)

Funding: Fully funded, including travel, accommodation, visa support, workspace, and meals during working hours. Residents also receive a pro-rated salary.

Who can apply: Applicants worldwide aged 18 or older. The program values demonstrated technical ability over formal credentials. Prior research experience is not required, although the applied track generally expects experienced professionals.

Application Deadline: August 2, 2026

🔗 Learn More | 🔗 Apply

📌 Figma Campus Leader Program 2026–2027

Who it's for: University and college students in the United States, Canada, and India who have at least one academic year remaining, actively use Figma, and enjoy building communities around design, creativity, and product development. Students from any major are welcome.

What stands out: The Figma Campus Leader Program gives students the opportunity to become the official Figma ambassadors at their university. Campus Leaders work with the Figma for Education team to grow their campus design community by hosting workshops, events, and creative programs while helping other students learn and use Figma.

I wanted to include this because it's more than a typical campus ambassador program. Rather than focusing on promotion alone, it gives students the resources to build a lasting design community at their university while developing leadership, event planning, and community-building experience that carries well beyond college.

Another thing I like is that India is joining the program for the first time this year, making this a great opportunity for Indian students who previously weren't eligible. Campus Leaders also receive a community budget for events, exclusive mentorship and training, direct access to the Figma team, custom Figma swag, and a complimentary ticket to Config, Figma's annual conference for product builders.

Program Duration: August 2026 – June 2027

Time Commitment: Approximately 2–5 hours per week

Benefits: Community budget, Config ticket, exclusive swag, mentorship, portfolio reviews, training workshops, and direct access to the Figma team.

Who can apply: Students in the United States, Canada, and India with at least one academic year remaining who are active Figma users and passionate about design, creativity, and community building.

Application Deadline: August 2, 2026 (11:59 PM PDT)

🔗 Learn More | 🔗 Apply

📚 Resources Worth Checking Out

Not every useful find comes with an application deadline.

Here's one resource worth checking out this week.

The Missing Semester of Your CS Education

Who it's for: Computer science students, self-taught developers, early-career software engineers, and anyone who wants to become more confident with the tools they use every day while building software.

What stands out: Every computer science degree teaches things like algorithms, operating systems, databases, and programming languages. But very few teach you how to use the tools you'll spend hours with every single day. That's exactly what The Missing Semester of Your CS Education, created by instructors at MIT, is all about. Instead of focusing on another programming language or framework, the course covers practical topics like the command line, Git, debugging, development environments, SSH, code quality, documentation, packaging, and modern AI-assisted development workflows.

I wanted to include this because I think it's one of those resources that's easy to overlook. We spend so much time trying to learn the latest framework, library, or AI tool that we sometimes forget the skills that make us more productive no matter what we're building.

One thing I really liked is how practical the course is. It's full of the little things experienced developers often take for granted but that can make a huge difference once you learn them. If you've ever wondered how someone is so fast with Git, the terminal, debugging, or navigating a large codebase, there's a good chance they've picked up many of the skills this course teaches.

I also like that the course has continued to evolve alongside the software industry. The latest edition introduces Agentic Coding and naturally incorporates AI-assisted development throughout the lectures, while still emphasizing the fundamentals that every developer should know.

Topics Covered: Shell, development environments, debugging, Git, packaging, code quality, AI-assisted development, documentation, and more.

Cost: Free

Format: Online lectures, notes, and exercises

🔗 Learn More

🌟 Community Finds

One of my favorite things about this series has been seeing people share opportunities, communities, and resources that others might not have discovered otherwise.

CALEC Volunteer and Internship Opportunities

Back in Edition #6, I featured CALEC's remote volunteer and internship opportunities after Francis (@francistrdev) shared them with the community. If you missed it, you can find the full overview and all the details in Edition #6.

Since sharing this opportunity with the community, Francis has also published a dedicated DEV post about the Full-Stack Developer volunteer role at CALEC. If that role interests you, it's worth checking out for his perspective and some additional information about what the team is looking for.

🔗 Francis' post

🔗 CALEC Volunteer & Internship Opportunities | 🔗 Edition #6

Thank you to Francis (@francistrdev) for thinking of the radar and sharing this with the community. It really means a lot 💙

I'd love for this section to keep growing.

If you've come across an opportunity, fellowship, grant, hackathon, conference, community, resource, or anything else you think more people should know about, feel free to share it in the comments.

If I feature it in a future edition, I'll always make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.

One small request: 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.

A short description alongside the link makes it much easier for me to review and potentially feature it in a future edition.

💙 Reader Updates

One of my favorite parts of this series is seeing where the opportunities end up. This section is all about celebrating those stories.

⭐ This Week's Reader Spotlight

One of my favorite moments this week came from @anhmtk, who shared that they discovered OpenAI Build Week through Dev Opportunity Radar and were able to submit before the deadline.

They built AgentShare Live-Tester for the Developer Tools track, an OpenClaw workspace agent, and even shared one of the biggest lessons they learned while building. They found that Prompt Caching becomes much more cost-effective once the static prompt exceeds roughly 1,024 tokens, making autonomous agent workflows much cheaper to run.

If you're curious about what they built, you can also check out their Devpost submission.

Seeing readers discover an opportunity, build something, and then come back to share what they learned is exactly what I hoped this series would become.

I always enjoy when readers come back to share not just what they built, but what they learned along the way. Those little lessons often end up helping other developers too.

Thank you, @anhmtk, for sharing your journey and for letting me feature it here. Wishing you the very best with the judging. I'll be rooting for you!

💬 Share Your Story

I'd love for this section to keep growing over time.

If you discovered an opportunity through Dev Opportunity Radar, applied to something, joined a community, attended an event, or simply found a resource you hadn't seen before, I'd genuinely love to hear about it.

You don't need to have been accepted or have a big success story to share. Sometimes simply discovering the right opportunity at the right time is already a win.

If you'd like to share an update, feel free to leave a comment on this edition. With your permission, I may feature it in a future 💙 Reader Updates section and tag you so other readers can celebrate your journey too.

I hope this section gradually becomes a place where we can celebrate those stories together, one update at a time.

👋 Until Next Friday

Before I go, I just want to say thank you.

Every week, I spend time searching for opportunities, resources, and communities that I think deserve a little more attention. But one of my favorite parts of this series isn't the research. It's seeing what happens after an edition is published.

Seeing someone discover an opportunity, apply to a program, share a resource, suggest a Community Find, or come back to tell us what they learned reminds me why I started Dev Opportunity Radar in the first place.

The goal has always been simple:

Help people discover opportunities they otherwise might have missed.

Thanks to all of you, it feels like we're doing exactly that.

Whether you've been reading since the very first edition or this is your first time here, thank you for being part of the journey. Every comment, suggestion, and shared opportunity helps make this series better than I could build on my own.

If you ever come across an opportunity, resource, event, community, or anything else you think deserves more attention, I'd love for you to share it in the comments. And if Dev Opportunity Radar helped you discover something exciting, I'd love to hear that too.

Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for helping make this our radar, not just mine.

I'll be back next Friday with more opportunities, resources, and Community Finds.

Until then, take care, and I hope you discover something amazing this week 💙

🌐 Dev Opportunity Radar Website

If this is your first time discovering the series, you can explore every edition, browse opportunities by category, discover Community Finds, and catch up on Reader Updates on the Dev Opportunity Radar website.

👉 Website

I also wrote a short post about why I built the website and the journey behind it.

👉 Website Launch Post