Skip to main content

Careers

Do what you love

Career opportunities at SAM are a chance to enrich and develop your love of the arts while contributing your unique skills and talents to our mission.

Join the team

SAM offers employment across a variety of different professional fields. Interested and experienced in one or more of the career fields below? We'd love to see you apply. Check out our current open roles, or join our talent pool for future opportunities.

Art handling, conservation and collections care, coordination and administration, curatorial, educational programming and public education, event planning, exhibition planning, exhibition design, development and fundraising, facilities, finance and accounting, legal affairs, marketing and communications, operations, people and culture, registrarial, retail, security, technology, visitor experience.

Celebrating difference

At SAM, our members, visitors, and local community come from all walks of life, and so do our employees, volunteers, and interns. The plurality of our identities and experiences strengthens our mission: connecting art to life. To be responsive to a multitude of cultural contexts and lived experiences, our Strategic Plan addresses the role art plays in empowering and elevating social justice movements and promoting structural change toward greater equity. SAM is dedicated to racial equity in the workplace because we know that people of color are the most impacted when it comes to both historical and present inequities. We know that equity is not a singular fixed destination, it’s ongoing reckoning. As SAM continually strives to be a more inclusive and equitable workplace, we are particularly interested in engaging with those who have been historically underrepresented in the museum field. We are dedicated to building a diverse workplace, and a sense of belonging for each and every employee, because we know our organization is at its best when we celebrate difference.

What we stand for

About SAM

​​The leading visual arts institution in the Pacific Northwest, SAM shares its 25,000+ object collection, from more than 140 cultures, through exhibitions, installations, and educational programs across its three locations—the Seattle Art Museum in downtown Seattle, the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the Seattle waterfront. Our dynamic institution couldn't do what it does without our talented community: 365 employees, 10 executive leaders, and over 200 volunteers.

Mission

​​SAM connects art to life.

Through art, the Seattle Art Museum fosters creativity and builds community. As a leading visual art institution in three unique locations, SAM shares its global collections, powerful exhibitions, and dynamic programs to engage, educate, and inspire.

Vision

Seattle Art Museum is a welcoming community where people find inspiration and discover our common humanity. We are committed to equity, exceptional art, and dynamic programs. At our three sites we offer enriching, fun, and rewarding experiences for all.

Values

Creativity
We bring art into people’s lives and help them understand its unique power to inspire creative thinking, which is crucial to understanding and solving our world’s complex problems.

Excellence
We build and create collections, exhibitions, and public programs of the highest quality and excellence.

Equity
We are responsive to cultural communities and experiences, and we think critically about the role art plays in empowering social justice and structural change to promote equity in our society. We are dedicated to racial equity in all that we do.

Engagement
We engage our audiences through dialogue that is mutually beneficial, inclusive, and enlightening in a spirit of mutual respect.

Diversity
We invite and respect many viewpoints and experiences, as we develop and sustain a diverse staff, board, and audience, and showcase art from the world’s diverse cultures.

Accessibility
We work to lower economic and physical barriers as well as barriers to understanding, so that art is accessible to everyone. We recognize the importance of excellent customer service in making art accessible to all.

Leadership
We recognize and embrace the leadership role SAM plays in the museum field and in our community. We lead responsibly in our approach to exhibitions, programming, collection stewardship, engaging visitors, and supporting our staff in line with our core values and mission.

Stewardship
We are transparent and careful stewards of resources, including collections, staff, volunteers, facilities, investments, and institutional records. We share SAM’s collection, our greatest resource, and legacy to the future, with the public through scholarship and interpretation, creative installation, conservation, and programming.

Internships

Interns collaborate on projects relevant to their career goals with visible impact on the museum’s programs, exhibitions, community partnerships, and more.

Volunteers

From advising to visitor engagement, volunteer roles support the museum’s mission and have an impact on all that SAM does.

Docents

SAM Docents build on their passion for art and their knowledge of art history to support gallery tours for a wide range of audiences.

Equity & Accessibility

We are committed to reducing barriers in order to facilitate art experiences for all.