Proposal Manager

Overview

Join a Company Where You Can Make a Real Impact – and Own a Piece of the Future

Are you energized by the idea of helping a company grow smarter, serve our customers better, and connect more deeply? Do you thrive in an environment where your ideas matter, your voice is heard, and your work drives real results? If so, we’d love to meet you.

We’re a mid-sized, employee-owned company on a mission to create meaningful value for both our employees and our customers. That means we’re not just looking for someone to fill a seat — we’re looking for someone who wants to build, innovate, and evolve with us.

Our company primarily serves the Navy and other Department of Defense clients, offering a dynamic environment where your expertise will make a difference.

About the Role

AVIAN (pronounced a-v-yin) is seeking a Proposal Manager to support our Corporate Team and lead the development of high-impact federal and DoD proposals. In this role, you will guide planning, solutioning, and narrative development while partnering with growth teams to transform capture insights, technical strengths, and win themes into persuasive, compliant proposal products.

Responsibilities

Proposal Leadership & Management

· Lead the full proposal lifecycle (pre-RFP through submission) for federal and DoD opportunities, ensuring compliance, quality, and alignment with capture strategy.

· Conduct requirements analysis, solutioning discussions, and compliance mapping using industry-standard processes (Shipley used).

· Develop or oversee the development of proposal schedules, outlines, compliance matrices, storyboards, and content plans.

· Work closely with BD and capture teams to understand customer needs, competitor landscape, program drivers, and solution differentiators.

· Manage proposal kickoff meetings, daily standups, and solutioning sessions to align all contributors.

· Coordinate all aspects of color team reviews (Pink, Red, Gold), including preparing review materials, collecting feedback, and managing recovery activities.

Content Development & Strategy

· Develop compelling, compliant, cost-competitive proposal content including management approaches, technical narratives, win themes, discriminators, and executive summaries.

· Integrate capture intelligence, past performance, and technical differentiators into narrative content.

· Research, interview, and partner with SMEs to translate technical inputs into polished proposal language.

· Tailor or repurpose existing content to meet specific solicitation requirements without sacrificing clarity or customer focus.

· Ensure consistency in tone, voice, structure, and visual formatting across volumes.

Collaboration, Coordination & Compliance

· Write, assess, and refine proposal content throughout the proposal process.

· Facilitate information flow among BD, capture, SMEs, subcontractors, and leadership.

· Utilization of SharePoint for document management, version control, and collaborative authoring.

· Coordinate teammate data calls, resumes, past performance inputs, and contractual requirements.

· Ensure all proposal elements meet evaluation criteria outlined in the RFP, including technical, management, past performance, and price volumes (in collaboration with pricing).

· Develop and maintain compliance matrices that guide proposal section assignments and internal reviews.

Pricing & Strategy Integration (Preferred)

· Contribute to or support Price-to-Win methodologies through cost estimating, scenario modeling, competitive analysis, and integration of pricing insights into technical volumes.

Quality & Delivery

· Ensure delivery of polished, error-free proposal submissions on schedule, sometimes requiring night/weekend work during surge periods.

· Maintain version control, quality control, and adherence to AVIAN branding and messaging.

· Support continuous improvement by capturing lessons learned and refining proposal processes and tools.

Qualifications

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required (English, Communications, Journalism, Business, or related field preferred).
• Minimum 5+ years leading and writing federal and DoD proposals; 10+ years’ experience preferred for complex pursuits.
• Demonstrated success winning competitive government proposals.
• Strong command of Shipley or other industry-standard proposal development methodologies.
• Proven experience collaborating with BD and capture teams to integrate customer intelligence and win strategy into proposal content.
• Exceptional writing and editing capability—able to create clear, compelling narratives from technical material.
• Strong understanding of DoD organizations, terminology, mission areas, and acquisition processes.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for large-document management and narrative development.
• Significant experience with SharePoint.
• Ability to work under tight deadlines, manage competing priorities, and coordinate with cross-functional teams.
• Experience conducting color team reviews and incorporating feedback into revised submissions.
• Ability to lead solutioning sessions and extract meaningful content from SMEs.
• Experience working in a team environment and supporting the success of the team’s goals.
• Due to the sensitivity of customer-related requirements, U.S. Citizenship is required.
• Salary range: $110,000 - $130,000 (The offered rate will be based on the selected candidate’s knowledge, skills, abilities, and/or experience and in consideration of internal parity.) 

Desired / Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with GovDash or other AI platform with regard to proposal development.
• Experience performing as Volume Lead and/or Proposal Manager on major federal proposals.
• Familiarity with government source selection processes.
• Advanced degree in English, Communications, Journalism, Business, or related field.
• Shipley, Lohfeld, or APMP training/certification.
• Experience integrating price-to-win into technical/management volumes.

Working Conditions/Environment

• Occasional evening/weekend work required during peak proposal cycles.
• Collaborative environment with tight deadlines and multiple simultaneous proposals.
• Hybrid/remote options available.

About being a part of Team AVIAN

As an employee-owner, you’ll be a catalyst for progress — helping us find new opportunities with current or new customers, company efficiencies, streamline processes, and bring people and ideas together in smarter ways. Whether it’s helping us optimize workflows, enhancing the employee experience, or delivering more impactful solutions to our customers, your inputs will have reach and relevance across the organization.

Taking care of each other is a cornerstone of our AVIAN philosophy. Being part of the AVIAN team means being part of a team that takes pride in being expansive in our community because our impact doesn’t stop in the workplace. We actively engage in community initiatives, empowering our employees to make a meaningful difference.

You’ll Succeed Here If You...

• See opportunities where others see routine
• Are curious, collaborative, and passionate about making things better
• Enjoy connecting dots across teams, tools, and tasks
• Believe in doing the right thing the right way — even when no one’s watching
• Play an active role in our growth, using your ideas and initiative to shape how we work, serve, and succeed together
• Embrace a “one team” mindset knowing we are stronger together through trust, transparency and teamwork.
• Understand the power of ownership — and are excited to be part of an employee-owned culture

Why Join Us?

• Employee Ownership: We’re not just building a company — we’re building a legacy. As an employee-owner, you’ll share in our success and have a direct stake in our future.
• Real Growth: We’re expanding, evolving, and exploring new ways to serve. Your contributions will shape our direction and help us grow stronger.
• Purpose-Driven Work: Every improvement you help make is one that adds value — not just for us, but for the people and missions we support.
• Culture of Collaboration: We’re big enough to take on meaningful challenges, but small enough that everyone still knows your name.
• Comprehensive Benefits Package: Designed to support your health, financial security, and overall well-being, our health and wellness benefits include medical, dental, and vision coverage, along with telemedicine services and a TRICARE supplement for veterans.
• Flexible Leave Benefits: we prioritize a balanced, supportive environment that allows you to thrive both personally and professionally and offer flexible and paid time off, 11 paid holidays, paid sick leave, maternity and bonding leave, and military training leave.

AVIAN is a service-based organization. As an equal opportunity employer, our policy of business is to seek the most qualified candidate for each talent opportunity without regard to race, creed, color, sex, age, religious belief, marital status, national origin, ancestry, sexual preference, physical or mental handicap, lawful political affiliation or veteran’s status.