Jobs & Internships
Employment
Employment vacancy announcements are posted here when available. Find more opportunities on the Smithsonian’s Office Human Resources website.
We are currently filling the following seasonal positions for the 2026 Folklife Festival. To apply:
- Read the Festival Job Openings document, which outlines start and end dates, pay grades where applicable, and position descriptions.
- Download the Sample Résumé (PDF or Word). To expedite the hiring process, applicants must follow this format.
- Fill out the online application form. Your résumé and any supplemental materials can be attached in the form.
For certain contract positions, the online application form serves only as an indication of interest. Applicants will need to respond to a forthcoming request for quote. If you have questions, please email FestivalJobs@si.edu.
Please complete and submit the application form by Tuesday, October 14, 2025.
Administrative Staff
Financial Administrative Assistant
Concessions & Marketplace Staff
Concessions Coordinator
Marketplace Coordinator
Marketplace Assistant
Marketplace Site Manager
Communications & Documentation Staff
Editor/Writer
Lead Photographer
Photo Editor
Videographer
Audio Documentation Assistant
Digital Asset Management Assistant
Design Staff
Graphic Designer
Graphic Design Assistant
Participant Staff
Participant Coordinator
Participant Assistant
Housing Assistant
Transportation Coordinator
Transportation Assistant
Production Staff
Production Assistant
Festival Services Assistant
Sustainability Coordinator
Sustainability Assistant
Livestreaming Coordinator
Stage Managers
Sound Crew
FOH Venue Managers
Program Staff
Program Coordinator
Program Assistant
Foodways Assistant
Garden Coordinator
Community Engagement Coordinator
Technical Staff
Administrative Technical Assistant
Supply Coordinator
Supply Assistant
Lead Carpenter
Assistant Carpenter
Electrician
Scenic Painter
Site Coordinator
Exhibit Workers
Technical Contract Staff
Volunteer & Visitor Services Staff
Accessibility Coordinator
Accessibility Assistant
Volunteer Coordinator
Volunteer Assistant
Visitor Services Assistant
Internships
Every year, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage involves over a hundred interns in our various activities. We offer internships year-round in various fields, including folklore, cultural anthropology, ethnomusicology, linguistics, museum studies, arts administration, graphic and web design, videography, marketing, social media, and library science. Most internships are in person in Washington, D.C., but a few can take place remotely.
Intern projects, conducted under the guidance of the Center’s professional staff, often focus on research and production for the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives, educational outreach, and cultural sustainability research and programs.
Interns are expected to work for at least sixteen hours per week for a duration of two to four months. Beginning in summer 2026, we offer stipends of at least $700/week to full-time interns. Transportation and housing compensation for interns is not available. Students in relevant fields may be able to arrange course credit through their college or university.
Some Areas of Internships
We welcome interns for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival year-round, although the bulk of the work is in the summer. In the fall, winter, and spring, interns assist with research and planning for the upcoming Festival’s programs—best suited for students in anthropology, ethnomusicology, and language studies as related to the program.
In the summer, we also seek interns to work on event production, technical crew, the Festival Marketplace, social media, web production, graphic design, foodways, curatorial team, the Festival Blog, public relations, accessibility, participant and volunteer coordination, video production, and administration.
Summer interns are expected to work through the open days of the Festival, including weekends and the July Fourth holiday. Festival interns should be comfortable working outdoors in high heat and humidity, in a fast-paced environment among large crowds of people.
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
An internship with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings offers a wide range of valuable and meaningful experiences in the recording industry and nonprofit arts administration, within the context of the world’s largest museum complex. Specific learning opportunities include the areas of online music education, marketing, and web and IT production.
Interns are expected to work for at least 100 hours, and ideally no less than ten hours per week. Some specific internships may require longer commitment to ensure a successful experience, both for the intern and for Folkways. In addition to honing specific skills, interns will meet regularly with their supervisors, work with other interns and other staff on team projects, and have access to a wide array of programming, as well as curatorial and professional experts across the institution.
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Interns in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections assist with preserving, digitizing, and cataloging archives collections, creating finding aids for collections, creating web presentations on archival materials, and helping with other projects. During the summer, archives interns create and process audio, video, and photo documentation of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in late June and early July.
We particularly welcome students in library and information studies who want an opportunity to work in a folklife archive as part of their degree program. Applicants should have a knowledge of or interest in world folk music traditions, audio engineering, photography, Adobe Photoshop, web design, or library and archival work.
Rinzler Archives Summer Internship
This internship in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is made possible through the generous support of the Scott and Dorothy Odell Internship Fund. The mentorship goals include working with archives staff to apply collections management best practices in arranging, describing, and digitizing collections, which consist of papers, photographs, audio recordings, audiovisual media, and managing digital assets. The intern may also work with connecting archival content in our Digital Asset Management System to the public and contribute to finding aids that meet current archival descriptive standards and are Encoded Archival Description compatible using ArchivesSpace (ASpace).
The internship can also be tailored to incorporate a research component exploring the intersections between archival policy and practice, and ethical collections care informed by the Center’s Shared Stewardship of Collections Policy. The collections include curatorial, ethnographic, and programmatic content associated with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the nonprofit record label Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the work of our Cultural Sustainability team, and the efforts of our Research and Education department.
This internship is for current or recent graduate students in one or more of the following fields: library and information science, museum studies, folklore, public history, anthropology, or ethnomusicology. Applicants should also demonstrate knowledge of or interest in ethnographic research, archival processing and description, digitization, digital curation, preservation, and/or digital asset management. In your essay, please describe how an internship in the Rinzler Archives can help you in pursuing a career in the cultural heritage field.
The deadline for the 2025 summer internship is March 1. The selected applicant will receive a stipend of $700/week for a full-time, ten-week internship.
The web production intern will assist with day-to-day operations related to the management of our websites. These duties may include digitizing images, scanning archival documents, encoding audio and video, entering metadata, and contributing written content to our websites. Scholars interested in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, American studies, and folklore will enjoy spending time with the curators and collections. Skills gained in the areas of web production are invaluable to future scholars, writers, educators, and content producers as they embark on their careers.
How to Apply
To apply, visit SOLAA and create an account. After selecting Internship, specify the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (please indicate the name of the specific internship in your essay). You will be required to upload supporting materials such as an essay, résumé, transcript, and letters of recommendation. Selected applicants will need to undergo a background check.
The submission deadline for summer internships is March 1. There are no deadlines for submitting applications for other seasons. The completed application is to be submitted at least six weeks before the start of the internship.If you have questions, please contact intern coordinator Arlene Reiniger at ReinigerA@si.edu.
