# EPF Day Panel

- Channel: [Devcon](https://streameth.org/devcon)
- Date: 2025-10-07
- Duration: 37:16
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-sOhT-LfOTkw
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOhT-LfOTkw

## Description

Panel with former fellows who became core devs and mentors

## Transcript

[Music] okay I guess we can start we already a bit late uh but we've managed finally to get all the all the panelists here so yeah um first of all thank you so much for being here uh all the all the fellows on the panel and all the fellows and attendees and mentors who managed to make it to the end of the EPF day of 2024 and we are uh wrapping up today's EPF day with a special panel discussion and I call it the E panel discussion because it's uh you know ethereum but it's also uh Echo Ethan and ano um uh completely randomly chosen Fells of course to join us and uh so I I chose you guys I invited you guys uh because all of you um have been in previous cohorts of the fellowship and today uh You' became full-time contributors you've became uh working with uh client teams or actually like um so I will start with quick intro and I will kind of do your uh intro you can add if you want something because uh I want to move to the questions but uh so we have uh we have here uh three people who have uh uh I believe are representing all kinds of possibilities that EPF can give you uh because we talk a lot about client teams and and the core contributors and so on but not everybody from EPF is going to end up working in a client team and uh there there are other kinds of um uh features for for you and uh I will start with uh with the lady here Eno uh who's been um uh working on uh dep packaging uh as a part of um uh created a verifiable deterministic builds for ethereum clients and uh has been working on it uh for more than a year now uh as as a as a grantee so continues her uh EPF work um on a grant uh and working on something which is you know ethereum tooling but not direct to the clients so uh great example of like how uh how how uh people from EPF can work outside of clients we have Eon who is on the other side directly in the client working full-time in Lighthouse uh as a as a core developer and we have Eko who is a researcher uh in ARG or yeah uh applied research group in in ethereum foundation so we have also representative of a research uh flow so yeah all kinds of all kinds of backgrounds and uh and I don't want to actually like talk really about your EPF experience itself because uh uh you can actually find it right if you go to cohort 3 cohort four repository all of uh all of the experience all of the work done by these people is there it's open uh it's uh you can you can read their story for week by week basically so uh we don't need to dive into that but I want to ask you folks um uh uh looking even before EPF before you uh before you started diving into ethereum diving into uh the Fellowship uh what was it like how did you what did you think at the time what brought you to the EPF what was your like initial motivation to start working on this what what yeah uh What uh interested you uh what was the the initial push to get into all of this whether EPF or ethereum yeah um see whoever wants to start um yeah so um I mean I got into ethereum or blockchain uh originally uh because I saw my friends use uh a um they took out a like collateralized Loan in like like a minute and we're moving money around and I'm like what is this like how does this work I don't understand this um and then they got liquidated like a week later and I'm like oh this is really cool like I want to learn more about it um and then you know fast forward a couple years I got a job in like web 3 um doing like you know app development um and I came across the EPF actually during cohort 3 um what it had already started so I was just kind of like peeking around seeing what was going on and I think the the merge was happening at the same time and when the merge happened like one of the main things that I noticed was like how it just worked like there was no no issues no bugs uh which is kind of like a crazy concept I don't know if you guys play like video games like I used to play World of Warcraft a lot and every time there was a new expansion the servers would crash like day one you know there was always an issue and for this like huge distributed system that you know multiple teams worked on um previously I didn't even know that there was multiple client imp implementations either which like kind of tripped me out as well um and so you know seeing all that um just like really impressed me and I wanted to learn more about that world and then you know cohort 4 came along I had already made a couple small PRS to Lighthouse um and interviewed and yeah got in got in that way so so you know you know that ethereum was created because of World of Warcraft yeah yeah I mean literally yeah it's it still keeps producing Cordes yeah um yeah yeah any yeah any co co yeah what feel um so what got me into blockchains uh it was a few years back whenever I was in the tail end of college and I was not really like was super lost and all of a sudden like Co hit and I kind of saw a lot of Institutions and like systems that were that were super fragile and like all of a sudden broke out of nowhere even though there was like this veil of legitimacy that was kind of shrouded amongst all these things that ended up breaking um and I saw technology as like in blockchains as like a way to kind of help build more robust systems to coordinate humanity and thought it was really cool and so I just started tinkering with um with like I was building some some light client that ended up like it was ridiculous looking back but like it it kind of got me got me in the door I met a client developer he told me about uh the the protocol fellowship and so uh yeah that's what happened and I applied and you all said yes so thanks so Word of Mouth helps to R Fellowship yeah all the time yeah dude yeah and I think like a big thing was uh interacting interacting online um with with people in the ethereum uh Discord and like you can you can find these people online and a lot of them are like really kind and are super excited to help anybody who's interested so yeah um so for me is um I'm I'm living in Thailand so I moved here like decade ago and I live in changai which is I don't know if how many of you went there to do a short visit it's basically a crypto City so Bitcoin is a very very um heavy Dominion there and I was always like oh I don't really want to get into this because it's um it's just old this crypto Bros and you just want to do with all this um new token and everything so I was like I no no I'm opposing to but U near Co um um I started working in a co-working place which is like a blockchain uh space and there was this guy who was doing a Chun myups and uh uh he was hosting a blockchain um U Meetup and um um my friend just come with me to just go once um so I went and I was like uh he was showcasing Unis Swap and stuff like that and I was like wow these are really really cool stuff like um I was like the first time that I actually see projects that trying to make an impact and at the time we don't didn't have the word for refy because that came a couple of years later but I was like oh this is like people are actually trying to build something that is very decentralized but also like uh uh also makes money for the people so it's like for me this was the initial sub that made me in wanted to um be a programmer so it was like I was really sad for very very long time that I couldn't really find all of these projects and I was here out of nowhere uh just after the co and yeah so that's that's where kind of my journey started and slowly slowly um um I get it more and more involved and the the EPF last year which is like also was crazy because I applied like I think a week or 10 days before I think less than I was like oh I'm not getting in I'm just applying so I actually W to in Co five or something like that and oh I got accepted so yeah that's a sory for me so where did you learn about EPF what what what uh yeah where did you learn about it where was it coming from U EPF oh so I actually know one of the uh previous follows from cohort 2 so that's how right so again word of M and Community it's like follows bringing more follows all the time um please bring more more follows next year yeah uh yeah thank you so much everyone uh yeah that's lovely so yeah that was uh before the cohort started and now I'm going to skip the cohort because again it's all on GitHub you can read the experience and we discussed like how it helped you and so on at the EPF days before but now I wonder like what happened for you since then so it's been like one year for you folks one and a half year for Ekko since the since the cord ended uh what is your biggest Revelation since then what was some uh highlights some biggest progress you've made some yeah some some Revelation you had since uh working with training wheels of EPF basically yeah um no okay so stays here um so I'm still working on the project and I'm working under the EPF so I'm um trying to simplify noing but also providing packages for Linux and um it's a pretty complicated project so there's a lot of moving Parts I I was think um I got a comment that it um I um um my project is um um to to I don't I don't know I don't remember the word but it's it's too much so it should have been just uh like the smaller one either way um one of the stuff is like just keep going and keep doing and things start to work out um and uh it just takes time more time than um than you would originally sold but it's still um it's just just just be patient and persistent and things going to work out yeah for me that's was yeah I mean um one of the biggest highlights uh so far being a CV was uh being able to go to uh one of the interop events so it was about I don't know six months ago or something we all uh all the client teams went to Kenya and we spent a week um kind of at this Resort and we all just kind of were stuck in a room together and worked for a week um and for me it was a really cool experience one I got to meet a lot of my team members that I'd been working remotely with and two I got to interface with you know researchers other Cent devs people that I've been working as core devs for years uh people that I you know respect that I look up to and I was sitting in the same room with them um you know having conversations with them uh I probably learned more that week than I'd ever have about blockchain any other period of time um and it was such a cool experience I tell everyone I felt like I was the the dumbest person in the room but in a like in a really good way like I felt like I was able to absorb so much um and I felt just like so lucky to be there um it was it was really really cool um I guess the biggest thing that I learned like going off of this like dumbest person in the room thing is that I like I got really scared a lot of the times whenever I was interacting with these uh core developers um and shied away more than I like looking back I wish I didn't shy away so much like I was really I didn't ask uh questions that I had uh like I was thinking because I was like oh what if someone thinks I'm I'm stupid or something like that and like um that's recently started to change but I still feel that like part of me that's fearful and um I don't know you can't like don't operate out of fear because that sucks like it's really not a good way to to like go through these go through life um yeah oh yeah thank you so much uh I mean it's all great advice uh uh whether it's like working hard whether it's you know don't be worried to ask questions uh yeah that's amazing uh because that was kind of my next question uh asking about some advice or maybe like something from the perspective at a time when you were doing or finishing the cohort uh what is something uh you wish you knew at a time what is some advice you would give to yourself at a time when you were still uh just just starting something that would make it easier for you um uh yeah with considering your current experience yeah sure um yeah don't operate out of fear um that's definitely a big one and I think like trying to keep the north star or whatever is like driving you forward your own internal Northstar I know this is like a meme that's been going on but um have your own uh and yeah like don't forget it whenever you go super deep into the technical like the weeds of things because it's really easy or at least for me to like go super deep into something and forget where I was and like if you kind of forget where you were then it's it's easy to to not remember three months down the road like oh yeah what was this all tying back towards so yeah I think one thing I told myself towards the end of the EPF is like regardless of you know what happens the the four or five months that I spent um I were so like valuable and I learned so much I became a better developer that regardless of like you know what ends up out of it like I know like personally I grew a lot as a person as an engineer um and I could take that anywhere else even if it's not in ethereum um and on the other hand I also was like dedicated to being like very persistent so I kind of told myself like I'm going to keep opening PRS at Lighthouse until they have to hire me like you know like I wasn't going to give up um and so those were kind of the two things that I had in my head and they made me feel you know I I wasn't like too stressed about it because I knew that regardless I gained so much out of it um that it didn't matter what the what was going to end up happening in the end um I think I I I have this question before so um I I think the same answer uh as I said like a year ago is like uh just talk more with the people uh like I feel I didn't really interact so much with the people and the people are so helpful like everyone's like from the EF and all of the teams and so on and so on and maybe they don't have the time to reply to every PR or every question that you have because they are busy and they have I don't know like I think they have like a tons of P there um or Cas issues so it's it just takes time for people to reply or just even understand I think I opened the pr and one of the client and they still working on it because they are just so much overhand with all the task and uh all the road map so uh just be really patient and and and interact more and uh and um and then don't work in isolation because for me it's like oh I can just do it alone and I can do everything and that's true but I think it's when I get the input I I can get out of this rubbit holes that sometimes I'm I'm really really um um dig myself into because it's just somebody just says to me something in like one sentence and like saves me two weeks of work so that's happens a lot so that that's that's really good for me yeah yeah awesome thank you very much yeah uh yeah it's all amazing advice uh very inspiring all of you guys I I hope to use you to inspire and motivate the current flows at the because it's U I think it's maybe a bit um tough time at the end of the cohort when you kind of don't know what's coming next right uh yeah uh uh I also wanted to ask um about that like what was it like during this transition period um before I get there I want to check if there are any questions from the audience I want to also give you chance to ask questions and I can just you know continue uh asking my stuff but I want you are here with these people I want to give you the opportunity same like the office hours right don't be shy classic right uh uh then is missing here to drive it oh we still have Kaa she's she's the runner up uh yeah we have a question already um yeah if you have questions please feel free to raise your hand we'll give you opportunity uh also there are three people with three very different expertise covering like most of the uh EPF core protocol related stuff so uh feel free to direct on the individuals or the whole panel uh so if you have questions yeah always feel free to ask um and if there are any or or not I can maybe continue but yeah okay K go ahead yeah I will I I want to save mine because we still have time so yes thank you for coming I just wonder how long was your cohorts how how how long how long how long was the cohort the cohort four four month Cort yeah the same four months it was before it was used to be four months and uh it was running uh uh uh Echo from the cohort 3 which was the first one that we did with uh Josh so also for us it was a new thing running from like uh November till February um uh 2020 uh uh 2 till 2023 um and then in 2023 we started C 4 uh where ano and Ean um participated yeah so yeah thank you um yeah yeah so so yeah uh chea uh hello I'm J V and I just wondering uh what's working as parents as working for AUM and for us companies yeah so so what's what's the working different from working for yes serum and for us companies I'm sorry s um uh emper is for foundation is very stable and yeah but for us must be is yeah yeah because folks again you have very different experience so maybe like what is it like working on a grant working for a client team working in EF and maybe if you have other experience from like corporate kind of normal businesses like if you can compare that yeah yeah I mean I've worked like uh in the healthcare industry e-commerce and also like web 3 app layer and um those were already always like very like product focused very um I guess like uh very like um we had like a product manager like we need this feature or if that site is down like you better wake up on a Saturday and like do this um and so working on like open source software um like Lighthouse um has been kind of like the opposite where um you um you like obviously there's things like Petra like the you know the upcoming upgrades that you know we kind of have to do as a client team but we also have a chance to like explore um you know maybe ideas that we have or work on things that interest us um and everyone on the team is also like very passionate about ethereum like you know when I worked in e-commerce I wasn't passionate about e-commerce you know like um so it's really cool to like work in a field that you ALS like care about in your personal time um and um yeah I guess and and then also like not just that I get to interface with other client teams and other researchers that aren't even part of our company um but we're all like collaborating together uh which is very weird I I had this discussion with someone about um you know the different client teams like let's say Lighthouse and prism and he says is there competition between Lighthouse and prism and I said no like you know we care about client diversity like you know we want you know a healthy uh diverse Network um and they just couldn't wrap their head around it they're like what do you mean like you guys like don't you know compete or hate each other or whatever and it's like no we literally collaborate like as I said we spent a week in Kenya like talking uh sharing ideas um learning from you know each other's like implementations or whatever um so it's it's a totally different Paradigm than I was used to in you know other jobs that I had um so so I didn't have any sort of real job uh before before working at the EF and and that's definitely it kind of has it has its pros and its cons but um yeah there's there's like a lot of room for you to kind of explore what it is that you want to do as a researcher at least um so there was not really there wasn't much structure at all and you just kind of go off and figure out what's interesting to you and you explore that and you it's on you to like reach out to others and try to learn from others and it's on you to like hold yourself like to set goals for yourself and like to make sure that you're staying on the right track and progressing the concept that you're exploring or whatever so that was very interesting and I think there's some organizational changes happening so it's a little less I think it's we're we're moving from this like super free formed research group to kind of like slightly more directed so that's changing but yeah that's how it was for me um all right so I think um I have quite a diverse experience so I was working for both corporations and for startups also for web a fre and non free basball and this is like uh basically kind of like my own company in a way because um I'm saying my own company because I have to do the development I have to do the project management I have to do the marketing I have to do the community building so it's like it's a lot and it's like I I like it's it's really like wearing a hat like like which hat you are wearing um in different days and it is just I cannot do like coding in on the same day and do marketing so then know I'm trying to to like make each day differ so when I'm just read just on Twitter or I'm I'm still not though um I'm trying my best um so it's um I I think it's it's very challenging um to do a project like this kind of size that I'm I'm actually started under EPF and um I'm still in in many ways I feel l so I'm really happy that to be here in defon and meet people and um get feedback and advis or see how people are actually doing um uh different projects um I think it's uh really rewarding uh so it's definitely something that I really love to do it's just tons of tons of work and if you know something break and um um I'm actually supporting all the clients which is like 10 at the moment and will be gr with grand D will be 11 so it's uh every time they just push an update like on Saturday like Lighthouse I had to just go and then do the release so it's like okay um I mean it's on them it's like sure why not um but it's it's like uh have all the processes done so I don't have to be there and do all this so it's it's it's U it's really really kind of like building up all of this so I can free up my um uh time and do um development work which is what actually matters and um it's challenging but also very rewarding I think yeah thank you so much ni I mean it's it's uh yeah very hard task to manage your own project independently but uh yeah a huge respect for also uh working like this and you guys are pushing releases during Defcon like you're you're working like how is it even possible I anyway yeah thank you so much everyone um yeah I'll audience like feel free to yeah I see some hands there yeah sorry good afternoon everyone so my question is um I had a project and it had something to do with Lighthouse so um I find it difficult to navigate through Lighthouse so I want really want to understand how do you guys maintain the code base because the code is kind of like much compared to grinding and most it's more like like there's a file that has like up to 6,000 lines of code like whenever I look at the code base I I I find it difficult to digest like how do you as a developer how do you navigate through so much code base how do you maintain how do you test and all of that yeah I remember when I when I first looked at Lighthouse I also um was sort of new to rust and I was pretty lost and overwhelmed and I think that happens a lot like in general when you look at uh new code bases like when you started a new job um you know you have to learn you know the infrastructure the business logic and so what I really try to do is like start small so so I picked like the easiest PR I could find I think it was like to like update a log message like literally like a on line it was just like changing like a string or something it was really silly um and then I got I took another PR that was a little more complicated and just started building on things so instead of like trying to do something big at first which would have been like really really overwhelming for me personally uh because the way I learn you know everyone learns differ but the way I learn is like by doing things um I just started with like the simplest PR you know issues could find um and built myself up from there and Lighthouse is a really complex code base um there's a lot going on there I mean I've been working at Lighthouse for almost a year and there's you know things in the code base that and not that um I'm not you know super familiar with um and I'm you know learning to this day and I'm sure even a year from now I'll be learning um so yeah there's there's a lot there um and you know we are on Discord so if you have questions um you can message us on Discord we're super responsive um and we can try to help um but yeah it's definitely a lot it's not a I I also had trouble at first for sure Claude helps like it it genuinely it's getting good now but like you can just highlight everything within within the repository and if you have a question be if you have a question highlight the repository and then ask the question like all right how do I like where do I start and these days it's pretty good at like it kind of knows the protocol pretty damn well and like understands Russ the language pretty damn well and it can it can definitely point you in the right direction that's an interesting heck yeah and any feel free to add like navigating or like maybe from to reframe it from your perspective because uh you were so not diving into like existing big code base but you were starting from zero but a very complex project so when you are starting from zero where do you start building something to have to patch um kind of a few clients on my project so because um not all of the clients are um U allowing for reproducible bus so it's like five or six language that I have to be in some ways familiar with so it's just basically they put the build IDE a year sometimes something else so it's a it's break so it's I have to redict through why it's not working so it's it's was really challenging to to like yeah but I think it un commend that um and also it C that it's just start small and keep building on it and small things over time it's like have like like people like always say when you save money do the compounding interest and it's in 10 years you know like you will get rich and I think people don't use that enough for development purposes because I think that's how it works and I think that's why atan got hired by lighthous as well because he started very small and keep building up onto and it's became very big in the end so so I think it's just start small and do and definitely do PRS like I think uh small PR start with small PR and uh you build it up yeah it's awesome that's a great advice as well Compound Effect yeah um any more questions anything uh from the audience feel free to ask uh generally or yeah gilia uh thank you um I had a question for you uh you said you were working on a research project and um I was curious about how you went about maybe if you got stuck in like rabbit holes or anything like that uh how you kind of got yourself out of those I have a bit of research experience and often I found myself just like spending a long time just thinking instead of doing as opposed to like when I code and I can kind of see where I'm going there's any progress and stuff like that where your mentors any help um for for I guess um what's word I'm looking for getting you unstuck and having like reaching milestones and stuff yeah definitely um I think the big thing is like starting with a goal like and and don't forget that goal like if you have a question don't forget the question um and then like making making a game plan based off of that like these guys y all the at the EPF um yall had like weekly updates that you had to do and it forced me to to write and like to like develop the I like help me keep track of the goal and to yeah like over time see if I am veering off and not answering the question or not answering the sub question that leads back to the main question I think like just visualizing and remembering what the main goal is and then also like I was lucky or I am lucky to to be with Alex and Matt and like you can ask these guys I don't know if you can find somebody who who knows about the topic uh and has research experience they can definitely help guide you um and like set the right goals and to to make the right game plan yeah but writing writing out helps because like otherwise it's really easy to just read stuff and to think you understand what's going on but then like someone asked you a question where you have to answer based on yeah like if you're not writing you only think you're thinking kind of thing all right thank you awesome uh yeah thank you so much EO um yeah we have last few minutes to go and um I would um yeah I would uh uh maybe close the panel with one more question uh because I'm wondering like um so there is there is a big difference between the EPF and now being just you know without the training wheels and I think one part of the the training or in EPF or one thing that we did what you mentioned the weekly updates many people say that like having this routine and the community which pushes you motivates you to build stuff right uh so I'm wondering like how this how does this change for you now what is what keeps you going what keeps you motivated what keeps you uh productive in a way whether you whether it's a routine whether it's some development process or like yeah what what keeps you going guys yeah um for a while this past year I kind of fell off and like got in a really bad spot uh but having like people around you in real life at least for me helps a lot and like if you know the people that you're working with and you believe the thing that you're trying to to build like the world computer and all the sub components of the world computer like yeah it definitely helps you stay motivated um yeah yeah don't don't get like so stuck in a rabbit hole or in your head that you you feel like you can't uh like talk to your to your people uh yeah um yeah I think uh for me um I'm definitely like a creature of habit and I think like motiv you're not going to always like be motivated every day but um what I try to do is like to be consistent So like um I have my routine I wake up you know at a reasonable time I have you know get a couple hours of work done go to Jiu-Jitsu get some exercise come back and get some more work done and like my wife always makes fun of me because like no matter where I am like I'm in Thailand right now and I'm still going to Jiu-Jitsu and she's like annoyed you're like you're in Thailand like let's go see temples and travel but like I like doing you know the same thing wherever I'm at because it gives me like a little bit of structure um and also like I get to work like with really talented team members um and I've learned so much like so much these last you know 10 or 11 months um that you know um I feel so like uh like privileged to be able to work with those people um and learn from them that like how can I not like wake up every day and you know do my job you know like so many other people don't have the opportunity that I have um and so I'm really like thankful for it um and yeah that's what you know gets me excited I guess most days um yeah um habits are definitely have full um for me um uh I I have uh the big Vision inside so I really want to simplify node running and I I just ship the Alpha version which is just like a month ago or something so I really want to see the project going and it's it's not in in a state where I I could be proud of it and I'm really waiting for that feeling that okay I'm I'm proud of this that I did this project so for for that point I would say I'm pretty much motivated after that I think what I'm going to keep me going is the community so if I start building the community right now and people start um requesting different stuff on on the repository or start using the project and that's that's okay this project is uh useful and people want to use it so um that that's the two thing that I have in mind to make myself motivated in the long term yeah uh yeah thank you so much everyone uh that's that's a really valuable advice because you know I mean we are it's U I want to say like it's yeah uh one more question we we are we are out of time so I'm sorry but we will be here so we can chat afterwards but now I uh I need to cut it off because we're already after 5 and get to close it here but yeah want to uh say a huge thank you because yeah very valuable advice uh uh about the um just the motivation that you just said I find very important because um it's not even a marathon it's a it's it's just like it's an infinite Garden right it's this Garden which just never stops growing you still need to trim it you still need to go uh it's you uh people like you are here for the long run and uh for the fellows here like uh it's been five months and I know it's been intensive but now is where the real work starts and now is uh now it's when uh the actual part where uh uh the the career opportunity of being uh in this uh core Community um starts and uh uh yeah uh many thanks for you to inspiring these people and helping them out uh you are a great example of uh of uh I think success in in this kind of community but also uh you maybe notice that I uh run this panel with like no technical question it's just like about our internal motivations and struggles and feelings and whatnot because like I believe that people here can relate to your experience because you really very similar thing but uh I want to emphasize all of these three people are technical Geniuses they are just amazing in what they do so uh I didn't take the opportunity to talk about some cool technical stuff and I know there is a lot of technical talks that def con but also please afterwards uh feel free to reach out to any of them uh ask them to Mentor you maybe or so uh so uh just wanted to wanted to highlight that but uh yeah um I think that's I think that's it so thank you so much everyone again thank you so much Eko Ethan Ando and all of the follows yeah thank you very much um the E pedal yeah yeah that's not going to happen again uh uh e pedal it was very special so yeah thanks guys and uh