Information Architecture Intern

Unlock Your Potential with the CSBS Summer Internship Program

For more than 110 years, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) has been uniquely positioned as the only national organization dedicated to advancing the nation’s dual-banking system, strengthening consumer protection, and promoting safe and sound financial supervision. Every day, we work alongside state regulators to oversee the financial services industry, foster economic growth, and drive innovative, responsive regulation. Our goal? To be the recognized leader in enhancing the quality and effectiveness of state financial oversight.

Are you ready to kickstart your career in the vibrant heart of the nation’s capital? The CSBS Summer Internship Program offers undergraduate, graduate, and law school students an unparalleled opportunity to gain hands-on experience, expand their professional network, and make a tangible impact in the world of financial policy and regulation.

This dynamic 12-week paid internship immerses you at the intersection of policymaking, technology, business, and regulation. You’ll work on meaningful, high-impact projects aligned with your background and interests, gaining exposure to industry leaders, policy experts, and fellow emerging professionals. In addition to your individual assignments, you’ll collaborate with a cohort of interns on a strategic enterprise-wide project that will leave a lasting impact on CSBS. Commuter benefits are also provided.

If you’re passionate about government, law, technology, public policy, business, or non-profit work, this internship is your gateway to professional growth and real-world impact.

Are you ready to explore, learn, and lead? Join us this summer at CSBS in Washington, DC, and take the next step in your career!

Values Instilled Behaviors for Excellence (VIBE)

At CSBS, work-life balance isn't just a policy; it's our VIBE! We recognize that our team members have lives that deserve attention and care. That’s why we create strong, supportive relationships that help everyone grow both professionally and personally. We honor each other's expertise and speak the truth, even when it’s a bit awkward. And guess what? This honesty creates a vibe of respect and trust that powers our efficiency and our excellence. It lets us chase those career goals while also nurturing our personal pursuits. At CSBS, you can thrive at work and at home—it's the best of both worlds!      

Just like a healthy work-life, collaboration is an essential part of CSBS’s mission. In fact, it is the heartbeat of everything we do! We're all about pitching in, giving props to our colleagues, and having each other’s backs. This allows us to push ourselves to our maximum potential and embrace those bold risks and innovative solutions. No matter what comes our way, our commitment to communication and teamwork strengthens us. We at CSBS are on mission and on the move, tackling all challenges together!

Intern Position Summary

The Information Architecture Intern will work with the CSBS Content Management team. The Content Management Team is responsible for overall content strategy, management, publication and delivery of product and business support knowledge and documentation. The team creates product technical documentation in DITA XML, converts content authored by Subject Matter Experts to DITA, and is responsible for the configuration and solution architecture for XML content management, transformation, and delivery. Additionally, the team is responsible for information architecture including organizing knowledge, taxonomy, XML structure and metadata, search engine optimization (SEO), and content analytics tracking user engagement.

The team is presently engaged in a large project to re-engineer the SharePoint-based NMLS Resource Center. This is a set of short, single topic user guides, policy and process documentation, state-specific forms and downloads, data samples, discussion forums and news feeds related to mortgage loan and money service business licensing in US states and territories. Audiences include license seekers (businesses and individuals), their agents and representatives; state and federal regulatory agencies and their staff; third party businesses including education providers and surety bond producers; consumers. Over ten years, this platform has grown to several hundred SharePoint pages, 1000s of single-topic documents, and a spiderweb of manually created links. 

Content is being curated and re-engineered into audience- and task- focused guides, instead of individual single-topic articles in the present state. Simultaneously, we are rebuilding SharePoint from the ground up in a QA environment to simplify the site structure and navigation while improving ability for search crawlers to index the site.

The two primary areas of focus for this internship include:

• Conversion of legacy content to DITA XML and creation of new technical topics for software updates. 
• Creation of a faceted classification model to organize and distinguish between content objects, files, and stored data using SharePoint Content Types. 

Essential Functions

• Identify metadata facets that enable SharePoint to dynamically filter content by audience, subject, user journey, media type.
• Develop and test a faceted classification model that can be used with SharePoint content types and SharePoint web parts to tailor display of links to content dynamically.
• Interact with SharePoint programmers to make modifications to custom web parts as needed.
• Assist with the structure of SharePoint (sites, subsites, pages) to create an SEO-optimized. structure with clear canonical authority. 
• Assist with conversion of content to DITA as needed. 

Education and Experience 

• Completion of an undergraduate degree, preferably in Technical Communications, Information Science, or Information Architecture.
• A minimum of at least one semester complete in an accredited graduate program in Information or Library Science, Information Architecture, or related.
• Practical experience with Search Engine Optimization. Experience with structured technical documentation, structured authoring software, and XML component content management systems preferred.
• Experience publishing from DITA, troubleshooting publishing and validation issues preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ability to seek or collect and synthesize information from a variety of sources and stakeholders in an objective, unbiased manner to reach a conclusion, and ability to derive actionable insights from complex user data.
• Strong attention to detail and communication to ensure all information is complete and accurate.
• Ability to collaborate and multi-task to accomplish objectives and build strong partnerships.
• Technical writing skills, intermediate knowledge of DITA, especially key-based references and experience with Oxygen XML Editor and one or more DITA CCMS systems.
• Knowledge of taxonomy, faceted classification, semantic knowledge modeling, and standards such as Dublin Core, Ranganathan’s PMEST.
• Knowledge of SharePoint metadata features such as content types.
• Knowledge of SharePoint ASPX, REACT.JS web parts, and Handlebars scripting language.
• Knowledge of SEO best practices and optimizing site structure for search crawlers.

Requirements

• Due to the nature of CSBS’s business in support of state financial services supervision, all CSBS employees have the potential of interacting with confidential information related to the supervision of financial services companies (“Confidential Supervisory Information”). As a result, in addition to general business conflicts of interest, all CSBS employees are expected to disclose conflicts of interest in financial services companies on at least an annual basis and to proactively avoid such conflicts.
• Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of CSBS information and information systems in accordance with CSBS policies and procedures.