Senior Proposal Writer

Firestorm•San Diego, CA

5d•Onsite

About The Position

At Firestorm Labs, driving business growth through compelling proposals, and empowering customers with clear technical documentation are essential. As a Senior Proposal Manager supporting our Business Development team, your mission is to partner closely with product, engineering, capture, and proposal teams to deliver accurate, updated, and easy-to-understand documentation. You will play a key role in creating business development materials ensuring our teams are fully equipped to win contracts and support customers effectively. You will work closely with our Business Development and Capture Managers to develop and manage the documentation that supports all phases of capture and proposal efforts. You’ll help shape strategic proposal content that integrates capture strategies, win themes, and discriminators tailored to mission-critical customer needs in the defense space. This includes crafting compelling narratives, proposal sections, and supporting materials that align with capture strategies and customer needs. In addition to business development deliverables, you may also be asked to support production of user-focused technical documentation such as operational manuals, procedures, checklists, and release notes that help end users operate and maintain Firestorm’s advanced defense systems. You’ll bring a hunger for knowledge, a thirst for quality, and an eye for accuracy. Strong critical thinking and the ability to digest technically complex information are vital. You will help define and build documentation processes, tools, and templates to scale these efforts across the company. The management in coordinating stakeholders and managing documentation roadmaps will set the standard for clarity, quality, and consistency across written materials at Firestorm Labs.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Technical Writing, English, Communications, or a related field.
U.S. Citizenship required due to ITAR regulations, with the ability to obtain and maintain a DoW security clearance
6+ years of experience as a Proposal Manager, preferably supporting DoW and Federal Government Contracting within the defense, aerospace, or technology sectors.
Proven track record of writing, editing, and managing complex proposals and technical documentation under tight deadlines.
Experience synthesizing information from technical subject-matter-experts and cross-functional teams into clear, concise, and persuasive documents.
Demonstrated ability to incorporate win strategies and customer-specific language into proposal narratives that resonate with evaluators.
Familiarity with Federal proposal structures and writing styles, including those found in Sources Sought, Requests For Information FI, Requests For Proposal, Requests For Quote analysis, compliance matrices, and narrative development for technical, management, and past performance volumes.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to tailor messaging for technical and non-technical audiences.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and version control/document management systems.
Strong management and organizational skills with the ability to manage competing priorities independently while collaborating effectively across teams.
Experience supporting contract deliverables and a working understanding of government solicitation processes.

Nice To Haves

Experience with CRM platforms such as Salesforce, etc.
Experience working in a fast-paced, high-growth environment or startup.
Familiarity with defense industry standards, DoD regulations, and proposal compliance requirements.
Military exposure and experience, particularly with military technical documentation writing and formatting standards (e.g., S1000D, MIL-STD-40051).
Knowledge of infrastructure modernization, applications/software development and sustainment, cloud solutions, warfighter solutions, and agile methodologies for defense, civilian, space, and national security sectors of the federal government.
Knowledge of business development lifecycle.
Experience writing technical user-facing documentation, style guides, and scalable documentation processes.

Responsibilities

Manage the end-to-end proposal development process, including kickoff planning, content schedules, outlines, compliance matrices, writing assignments, and internal reviews to ensure timely, compliant, and high-quality submissions.
Generate, review, and edit user-focused documentation supporting proposal, and business development efforts. This includes support to whitepaper, proposal responses, technical narratives, and pricing materials.
Engage with SMEs and cross-functional stakeholders (Pricing, ITAR, Legal, Solution Architects etc) to develop proposal artifacts that are clear, concise, persuasive, compliant, and compelling.
Ensure content is accurate, error-free, and aligned to RFx requirements, company processes, capture strategies, and industry best practices.
Support the development of pricing strategies and narratives in coordination with finance and capture leadership, ensuring alignment between technical solution and cost volumes.
Manage multiple concurrent RFPs, RFIs, white papers, and unsolicited proposal efforts, balancing near-term priorities and long-term growth objectives.
Build and continuously refine proposal processes, templates, and content libraries to improve scalability, repeatability, and efficiency across future pursuits.
Create and contribute to documentation style guides, processes, lifecycle workflows, and toolkits to improve quality, efficiency, and scalability of documentation efforts.
Identify and implement opportunities for continuous improvement across the capture and proposal lifecycle, applying lessons learned to optimize future pursuits and increase win probability.
In conjunction with the Business Development Leads, manage the “go/no-go” process, deciding which pursuits to dedicate resources to, ensuring high ROI
Manage and prioritize multiple concurrent documentation projects and deadlines, adapting quickly to shifting priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Identify gaps or risks in documentation efforts, proposing and implementing solutions to keep projects on track.
Participate in tooling selection and implementation for authoring, version control, desktop publishing, and content management to enable efficient documentation workflows.
As required, provide support to the development and maintenance of technical manuals, operational procedures, checklists, templates, troubleshooting guides, and release notes to support end users and internal teams.

Benefits

Comprehensive medical, dental, and visions plans
401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
Equity grants for new hires
Unlimited PTO
Extremely generous company holiday calendar, including a holiday hiatus in July, & December.
Generous Parental Leave
Lifestyle Spending Account
FSA
DCFSA
HSA
Hospital Indemnity insurance
Critical Illness insurance
Accident insurance
Basic Life/AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance, 100% covered by Firestorm.
Option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your family.
Mental Health Resources: free mental health resources 24/7 including therapy and more.
Additional work-life services, such as free legal and financial support.