Jobs via Dice is hiring: Director of Proposal Operations in Fairfax

ECS is seeking a Director of Proposal Operations to work in our Fairfax, VA office (hybrid).

Come join a fast growing, innovative and energetic growth team! In this highly visible leadership role, you will leverage extensive experience in strategic proposal management, including expertise in large‑scale, multi‑phased written and oral proposals. You will be responsible for leading and managing the full proposal development lifecycle process, including teams of Proposal Managers, Proposal Analysts, Graphic Designers, and Proposal Writers. This role requires strategic oversight, demonstrated expertise in process improvement, and the ability to collaborate across departments to deliver high‑quality, compliant, compelling, and winning proposals.

This exciting unique role reports directly to the Director of Strategy Operations and has a high degree of visibility across the organization. To be successful you must demonstrate an ability to be a highly collaborative professional that is able to create positive energy and be an efficient problem solver, leveraging a proven ability to lead, mentor, and develop high‑performing proposal teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Direct, mentor, and coach the proposal team, including Proposal Managers, Analysts, Technical Writers, and Graphic Designers, fostering professional growth and development.
• Grow next generation proposal talent with heavy emphasis and adoption in generative AI.
• Develop and implement proposal strategies in collaboration with corporate leadership, ensuring alignment with company strategic goals and objectives.
• Be responsible for workload and schedule management and oversight of the entire Proposal Operations team.
• Lead job architecture design efforts across proposal job family, categories, and levels.
• Support corporate scaling initiatives to expand ECS proposal development capabilities.
• Improve, architect, and govern the proposal development lifecycle to ensure maximum efficiency, compliance, and alignment with corporate strategic goals.
• Lead the development and continuous enhancement of a comprehensive Proposal Operations framework, maintaining base content libraries, templates, SOPs, and training materials.
• Champion and drive the integration of new proposal tools and technologies, specifically Generative AI, into the proposal process and provide guidance on effective use of AI for proposal development and prompt engineering techniques.
• Conduct and lead debrief assessment meetings to discuss and analyze recent wins and losses, document lessons learned and develop strategies to drive continuous improvement.
• Deliver proposal‑related training to growth teams when knowledge gaps exist.
• Proactively identify and develop strategies to mitigate proposal delivery and compliance risks.
• Ensure all proposals comply with federal regulations and customer requirements and are incorporated into a cohesive and persuasive form.
• Conduct quality reviews and continually improve quality review processes to ensure proposals are clear, concise, and compelling.
• Manage proposal resources, including staff, budgets, licensing, purchasing, surge suppliers, and external vendors. This includes determining and justifying the need for additional team members, developing position descriptions, and recruiting and making hiring decisions.
• Allocate resources effectively to meet proposal deadlines and objectives and communicate Proposal Center budget, workload, projected needs, and business issues to leadership.
• Support and champion Salesforce adoption as a proposal management and resource management tool.
• Monitor and understand the ECS enterprise pipeline and prioritize requests for resources to include supporting bids in capture.
• Regularly liaise with BU leadership and account managers throughout ECS to fuel greater engagement and drive value add to win deals.
• Weekend and evening hours and quick‑turn projects are routinely required; on‑site, in‑person presence in Fairfax, VA, as needed.
• Work closely with Business Development, Capture Management, Solution Architecture, Contracts, Subcontracts, Pricing, and Technical Teams to develop and implement winning strategies.
• Facilitate communication across departments to ensure proposal alignment with customer pain points and requirements.
• Work with proposal managers, capture managers, solution architects, and delivery teams to develop a compelling proposal story.

Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Communications, English, Marketing, or similar field (or 15 years of Federal proposal experience in lieu of degree).
• Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in proposal development responsibilities.
• Minimum of 5 years managing all types of solicitation responses, including full and open single and multi‑award proposals, BPAs and IDIQs valued at $150M‑$1B with various cost types including FFP, CPFF, T&M, CPAF, etc.
• Minimum of 5 years in a management/supervisor/leadership role.
• Experience managing a proposal development organization.
• Experience in managing multiple oral proposals and coaching multiple oral presentations teams and/or experience managing GSA FEDSIM proposals.
• Extensive knowledge of federal contracting and procurement processes across the federal government.
• Proven track record of winning complex federal contracts.
• Strong leadership, organizational, and project management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication abilities.
• Proficiency in proposal collaboration software, including MS SharePoint, MS Office, MS Teams, Adobe Acrobat, and proposal automation tools/applications.
• Shipley Certification or APMP Foundation certification or equivalent.
• 1 or more years' experience leveraging Generative AI tools and prompt engineering for various aspects of the proposal development lifecycle process.

Desired Skills

• Experience managing 30+ team of proposal practitioners of DC Metro based and geographically dispersed.
• Master's degree in Business Administration, Management, Marketing, Project Management, Information Technology Management, or similar fields.
• APMP Practitioner, Capture Practitioner, or Professional certification.
• Formal training in Generative AI for proposals.
• APMP Micro Certifications.
• Demonstrated commitment to maintain, improve, and broaden knowledge and skills as evidenced by 20+ Continuing Education Units (CEUs)/Continuing Professional Development (CPDs) within the past two years.
• Early career serving as a proposal coordinator, proposal writer, or proposal graphics designer. Prior experience as a Capture Manager a plus.
• Prior experience building out and supporting bids requiring Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) development.
• DC Metro located candidates.
• TS clearance with SCI eligibility.

ECS is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate or allow discrimination on the basis of any characteristic protected by law. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local jurisdiction law.

ECS is a leading mid‑sized provider of technology services to the United States Federal Government. We are focused on people, values and purpose. Every day, our 3,300+ employees focus on providing their technical talent to support the Federal Agencies and Departments of the US Government to serve, protect and defend the American People.