Proposal Manager

Kearfott Corporation•Black Mountain, NC

11d•Onsite

About The Position

The Proposal Manager leads development of assigned customer proposals and quotation responses across Kearfott’s Guidance & Navigation and Motion Systems divisions. Working with Business Development, capture leads, and contributors across the company, the role turns customer requirements, pursuit strategy, win themes, and technical and commercial inputs into clear, compliant, persuasive submissions that strengthen Kearfott’s probability of win. The Proposal Manager reports to the Proposal Management Lead, who owns the organization-wide proposal process and review cadence. Business Development and capture leads own pursuit strategy and bid/no-bid decisions; the Proposal Manager owns the quality and execution of assigned responses. The position uses Awarded.ai and other company-approved AI capabilities to improve proposal work while verifying outputs and following company information-handling requirements. It is located at Kearfott’s Black Mountain, North Carolina facility.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in business, communications, engineering, or a related field.
3–5 years of experience in proposal development, proposal management, technical writing, or closely related customer-response work, with demonstrated responsibility for developing complex submissions.
Must be a U.S. citizen and able to obtain government security clearance.
Strong, proven ability to manage cross-functional teams to execute on time.
Excellent writing, editing, organization, and communication skills, including the ability to make complex technical information clear and relevant to a customer.
Meticulous attention to detail and strong organizational skills.
Ability to work across functions, obtain timely input from busy contributors, manage competing deadlines, and maintain quality under pressure.
Ability to perform under pressure within tight deadlines.
Proficiency in Excel, Microsoft Office, and AI software.
Familiarity with CRM systems and databases.

Nice To Haves

MBA or other advanced degree.
Experience in aerospace, defense, motion control, navigation, or other technical manufacturing.
Experience with proposal or generative AI tools; prior Awarded.ai experience is not required.

Responsibilities

Lead assigned RFIs, RFQs, RFPs, and other customer responses from kickoff through submission and post-submission follow-up, managing multiple efforts and deadlines.
Analyze customer requirements, instructions, and evaluation criteria; develop or maintain compliance matrices, annotated outlines, response plans, and schedules; and identify gaps, risks, and clarification needs early.
Partner with Business Development and capture leads to understand customer priorities, competitive context, win themes, discriminators, and proof points, and carry them consistently through the response.
Obtain and integrate accurate, persuasive inputs from engineering, product management, manufacturing, operations, quality, finance, contracts, program management, and other subject-matter experts; follow up on missing or unclear inputs and elevate risks promptly.
Write, edit, and integrate proposal content into a cohesive, customer-focused story, ensuring technical, management, past-performance, schedule, quality, and commercial content is clear, consistent, supported, and aligned with response strategy.
Coordinate pricing and contractual inputs with responsible teams and maintain alignment among the proposed solution, technical volumes, schedule, assumptions, and commercial response.
Prepare teams for reviews conducted through the established proposal process, incorporate review feedback, and complete compliance, accuracy, document-quality, and submission checks before delivery.
Use Awarded.ai and other approved AI tools for solicitation analysis, compliance mapping, approved-content retrieval, drafting, editing, and quality checks where appropriate; validate AI-assisted work and protect company and customer information.
Capture customer feedback, debrief findings, lessons learned, and reusable content to improve future proposals and support continuous improvement in proposal quality and probability of win.