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Apply to Future Fellows

A few questions to get started. Real people read every application.

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Application received · Builder track

One more step, and it's worth your time.

Your application is in. Because you're applying as a Builder, there's a short assessment that shows us what you can actually do — and sends you back a written read on your work.

Start the assessment I'll do this later

Free, about 10 minutes, and it opens in a new tab so this page stays where it is.

What StackUp is

  1. You paste a link to a public repository you've built — GitHub, GitLab, or Codeberg. Pick the project you understand best, not the biggest one.
  2. It reads the code and your commit history, then interviews you about the decisions in it. Questions come one at a time, and you can't go back.
  3. You get a written report on what the project shows and what would move it furthest. It's yours to keep, whatever happens with your application.

Building with AI is fine and isn't counted against you — the questions are about whether you can account for what you shipped.

Application Received

Thank you for applying.

We've received your application and it's now in our review queue.

What happens next

  1. We review every application against our intake criteria across Skills, Agency, and Professionalism. This takes real time — we don't send instant decisions.
  2. If there's a fit, we'll reach out directly by email to schedule a short conversation.
  3. Qualified applicants join our bench — a pool we draw from when a specific, paid project with an employer partner becomes available for your track.

Questions in the meantime? Reach Rory directly at info@joinfellows.org.

A note on where we are

Future Fellows is early. We're building the employer side of this alongside the Fellow side, in parallel. That means the bench you're joining today may take time to convert into a matched project — we'd rather tell you that plainly than oversell where we are.

What that also means: if you're one of our first Fellows, you're not joining something already proven. You're helping prove it.

While you wait

Five pieces we think are worth your time, regardless of what happens with your application.

  • What You'll Wish You'd Known
    Paul Graham
    A case against the standard "figure out your passion" advice — and for optionality instead, especially before you're forced to specialize.
  • Advice for Ambitious 19 Year Olds
    Sam Altman
    A tactical framework for choosing between school, a company, or a startup — built from patterns across many people who asked him this exact question.
  • Nobel Laureate Claudia Goldin on "Greedy Work" and the Wage Gap
    Claudia Goldin — 2023 Nobel Laureate in Economics, on Freakonomics Radio
    Why some employers pay disproportionately more for near-total availability — and what that means for which industries and roles to target early.
  • On Passion and Its Discontents
    Cal Newport
    The tightest version of his "career capital" argument: build rare, valuable skills first — passion and autonomy follow, not the other way around.
  • When to Quit: A Simple Framework for Life's Toughest Decisions
    Annie Duke, on Big Think
    Former pro poker player turned decision scientist on why "never quit" is bad advice — and a concrete framework for knowing when to walk away from a path.