Not an application
If you already do this work
The internship is entry-level. That is deliberate, not an accident of resourcing — it exists to take people who have never done open-source intelligence work and give them a real first run at it.
If you have been doing this for years, an unpaid internship is the wrong shape for you and probably a bit insulting. We are not going to offer you one.
What we are offering is liaison — the ordinary arrangement between two independent outfits who each have something the other is short of, and neither of whom works for the other. You keep your own work, your own cases and your own name. So do we.
The exchange
The hard part of independent work is not skill. It is researching into a void — nobody to check the finding before it goes out, nowhere credible to put it, and no attribution when you were right. Most of this list is aimed at that. Each line says which way it runs.
- A second reader before you publishBoth ways
- Someone reads a finding adversarially and tries to break it before it goes out — sourcing, alternative explanations, the parts that only hold if you squint. In both directions, on request, one piece at a time.
- Somewhere for it to landWe provide
- Earth Alliance News, RevNow, the Knights Portal. Findings with a credible outlet instead of dying in your notes. Edited, and only if it holds up — a publication that runs anything is worth nothing to be published in.
- Your name on itWe provide
- Signed work, and a body of published intelligence that is yours and stays yours. We do not put our byline on your findings.
- The tools, and a say in themWe provide
- Starcom, Navcom, the Tactical Intel stack. Free, and staying free. Tell us where they fail you and it changes — you are talking to the person who builds them, not a form.
- First look at people we have trainedWe provide
- The cohort produces researchers who have done real work under supervision, with a record of what they actually produced. If you ever need a second pair of hands, you get the first introduction.
- Work neither of us should be doing aloneBoth ways
- Things arrive that are not ours to work — wrong specialism, wrong jurisdiction, a conflict. We pass them on rather than sitting on them, and we would hope for the same.
- One question, answered properlyBoth ways
- A standing line for the thing you happen to know and we do not. No retainer, no obligation, no expectation you answer — and the same available to you.
- An hour with the cohortWhat we would ask
- If you want the platform: one session on your specialism, once. Entirely optional, and the only thing here with a time commitment attached — which is why it is the only thing we would actually ask you for.
What this is not
This is not a position and it is not unpaid work. Nobody is assigned anything, there are no hours, and there is nothing to withdraw from. It is a standing offer to be useful to each other, used when either of us has a reason.
Which also means there is nothing here you can be let down by. Ignore us for a year and the offer is still open; take us up on one thing and never speak to us again and nothing has gone wrong.
What we do not have
Money. Not “not yet” — we do not make money on this work at all. There is no revenue stream your findings would feed and no point at which a cheque appears. If you need to be paid for your time, and that is an entirely reasonable thing to need, we are not able to be that. Nothing here is a pipeline to a paid role, because there is not one.
Introduce yourselfNot an application
The ordinary opening of a professional conversation: what you work on, what you have produced, and which parts of the exchange are actually of any use to you. Picking one is not a commitment to it.
Roughly when you are reachable.
The actual subject matter. What you have spent your time on, and what you are good at that most people are not.
Published findings, a report, a thread, a repository, a talk — anything with your fingerprints on it. If your work is sensitive or your name is not on it, describe it instead and we will take that as it comes.
Communities you are part of, people who would recognise your name, places you have collaborated. Optional, and no names you would rather not give.
Be direct. We cannot pay, so whatever you are here for has to be something else, and it is better for both of us if you say what it is — including if it is none of the above.
You are three weeks into a case and the evidence starts pointing at someone you know, or an organisation you belong to. What do you do next? You have almost certainly had this happen — we would rather hear how it actually went than how it ought to go.
Former employers, communities you are part of, clients, subjects too close to home. A long answer here reads as experience, not as a problem. “None I can think of” is fine too.
How we work
The same four apply to everyone, whatever they arrived knowing:
- Follow the evidence where it leads.
- Disclose a conflict as soon as you notice one.
- Never withdraw from a case silently — say so, and it gets reassigned without argument.
- Do not move case material outside the agency.
We record how long you took and which of our links brought you here, if any. We delete applications a year after they are sent, unless you join the cohort. Ask us any time and we will send you everything we hold on yours. Write to jono@archangel.agency and a person answers; there is no automated lookup, deliberately.
Jono reads these personally and replies within two weeks, either way. There is no queue, no scoring, and nobody else in the loop.
If you would rather skip the boxes, jono@archangel.agency reaches the same person. And if you decide the Winter 2026 cohort is what you want anyway, the door is open and nobody will find it strange.