Senior Proposal Manager
About The Position
The Senior Proposal Manager runs Spry’s proposals day to day, writes core sections, and supports the capture, deal assessment, and pipeline work behind them. The role takes bids from kickoff through submission independently and may manage multiple pursuits at once. It works directly with the Director of BD, who leads capture decisions, sets proposal strategy, and owns pricing; the Senior Proposal Manager owns the proposals and keeps them moving when the Director is at events or with customers. The position calls for frequent communication, adaptability when priorities shift, and an approach tailored to individual contributors. Responsibilities span opportunity sourcing and qualification, capture strategy, proposal writing and management, pipeline reporting, content-library upkeep, and debriefs and event support. Success means delivering timely, compliant proposals; keeping pursuits moving; maintaining a qualified pipeline; and using debrief feedback to improve proposal performance.
Requirements
- At least 7 years of federal proposal experience, including leading several proposals from kickoff through submission.
- Strong writing skills; candidates must share samples of volumes they wrote, and finalists complete a writing exercise.
- Experience coordinating proposals, including compliance matrices, schedules, and color team reviews.
- Experience helping shape capture strategy, win themes, and bid/no-bid recommendations.
- Experience finding and qualifying federal opportunities using SAM.gov, GovWin, or similar tools, and supporting pipeline management in a CRM.
- Working knowledge of FAR basics, Sections L and M, and common federal contract vehicles.
- Clear, frequent communication; steadiness when plans change; and ability to adapt approach to the people being worked with.
- U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain a security clearance; an active clearance is not required.
Nice To Haves
- APMP Practitioner or Shipley certification.
- Experience at a small business where one person handled capture, proposal, and pipeline work.
- Exposure to DoD, Federal Civilian, or National Security customers.
- Experience reviewing pricing volumes for compliance and consistency with technical volumes.
Responsibilities
- Find federal opportunities through SAM.gov, GovWin, agency forecasts, and partner leads, and prepare briefs on promising opportunities.
- Assess opportunity fit, competition, incumbency, and timing, and provide bid/no-bid recommendations to the Director of BD.
- Research customers and competitors to inform capture plans, win themes, and teaming options.
- Draft call plans and help prepare for customer meetings and industry days.
- Help the Director set and adjust capture strategy for priority pursuits.
- Write technical and management sections, and own short RFI, RFQ, and task order responses.
- Interview subject matter experts and turn notes into clear, compliant proposal narratives.
- Carry win themes and discriminators through proposal sections.
- Write past performance narratives that connect Spry’s work to measurable outcomes.
- Draft executive summaries and cover letters.
- Run proposal kickoffs, set schedules and writing assignments, and build compliance matrices and annotated outlines.
- Keep contributors on schedule and tailor check-ins to how they work best.
- Prepare drafts for color team reviews and incorporate agreed comments into final versions.
- Format proposals, perform final quality checks, and submit them on time through portals.
- Maintain CRM records, including stages, due dates, and next steps for tracked opportunities.
- Prepare pipeline reports and help the Director run pipeline reviews.
- Check pricing volumes for alignment with technical and management volumes and flag gaps to the Director, who owns pricing.
- Keep past performance summaries, resumes, and boilerplate current and accessible in SharePoint.
- Add strong language from submitted bids to the content library.
- Coordinate with the Director to keep capture content and past performance write-ups consistent.
- Request and document debriefs and use feedback to improve processes.
- Attend selected industry days and events when useful to a pursuit, approximately 5% of the time.
- Handle ad hoc leadership requests related to proposals and growth.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
