Pursuits Manager - Education, Science and Sports

HDR; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 154,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

HDR is seeking an experienced Pursuits Manager to lead a team of pursuit professionals within the Education, Science, and Sports practice. You will drive proposal development, interviews, and post-pursuit follow-up, coordinating with sector leaders and HDR Marketing Studio colleagues. The role emphasizes strategic thinking, leadership, and delivering client-focused submissions.

Qualifications

• More than 10 years in the A/E/C industry with pursuit strategy and team leadership.
• Experience developing competitive pursuit materials and interviews.
• Ability to manage budgets, schedules, and resource allocation.

Responsibilities

• Lead priority pursuits for Education, Science, and Sports sectors, mainly in the United States with global support.
• Mentor and develop a team of pursuit professionals; provide coaching and career development.
• Oversee complete pursuit lifecycle: planning, strategy, messaging, work planning, proposals, interviews, and post-pursuit follow-up.
• Coordinate with Architecture Marketing Studio members (communications, photography, design, pursuit specialists).
• Establish and manage pursuit budgets and levels of effort; ensure quality control.

Skills

Team leadership

Pursuit strategy

Proposal development

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Adobe InDesign

Microsoft Office

Job description

At HDR, our employee-owners are fully engaged in creating a welcoming environment where each of us is valued and respected, a place where everyone is empowered to bring their authentic selves and novel ideas to work every day. As we foster a culture of inclusion throughout our company and within our communities, we constantly ask ourselves: What is our impact on the world?
Watch Our Story: ' https://www.hdrinc.com/our-story'
Each and every role throughout our organization makes a difference in our ability to change the world for the better. Read further to learn how you could help make great things possible not only in your community, but around the world.
HDR is adding an experienced, strategic, and collaborative Pursuits Manager to support our Education, Science, and Sports practice. This individual will lead a team of pursuit specialists and partner with sector leaders, principals, designers, planners, researchers, engineers, strategists, and marketing and communications colleagues to position HDR for success on pursuits.
The Pursuits Manager will oversee the pursuit team and process from early positioning through proposal development, interviews, and post-pursuit follow-up. This role requires someone who can see the larger strategic picture while also providing the leadership, structure, coaching, and quality oversight needed to deliver compelling, client-focused submissions.
As a key member of the Architecture Marketing Studio team, the Pursuits Manager will connect people, information, and opportunities across EdSciSport. The successful candidate will be passionate about competitive pursuits, team development, design excellence, and communicating the value HDR brings to its clients and communities.
This position is ideal for a leader who understands what makes a pursuit successful, enjoys developing others, and thrives in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment.
The successful Pursuits Manager will:

• Build trusted relationships with pursuit professionals, principals, and sector leaders.
• Develop and support a high-performing, connected, and efficient pursuit team.
• Deliver consistent, high-quality, client-focused pursuit materials and interviews.
• Improve visibility into opportunities, priorities, workload, and resource needs.
• Promote cross-sector collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement.
• Balance process consistency with the flexibility needed to respond to different clients, markets, and opportunities.

Primary Responsibilities

• Lead and support priority pursuits for the Education, Science, and Sports sectors, primarily in the United States with opportunities to support global pursuits.
• Manage, mentor, and develop a team of pursuit professionals through workload oversight, coaching, feedback, career development, and training in pursuit strategy, proposal development, facilitation, quality, and best practices.
• Lead pursuit teams through the complete pursuit lifecycle, including planning, strategy, messaging, work planning, schedule development, milestone reviews, proposal production, interview preparation, submission, and follow-up.
• Facilitate pursuit strategy and kickoff meetings that align teams around client needs, differentiators, win themes, responsibilities, and desired outcomes.
• Oversee the development of persuasive, client-focused proposals, qualifications, presentations, and interview materials.
• Manage pursuit workflows, assignments, schedules, budgets, and quality-control processes.
• Balance pursuit resources across a growing national pipeline, coordinating with other pursuit teams when additional capacity or specialized expertise is needed.
• Collaborate with members of Architecture Marketing Studio: communications, photography, videography, graphic design, pursuit principals, pursuit managers and pursuit specialists.
• Partner with the Pursuits Principal, Strategy and Intelligence to translate capture planning, client intelligence, competitive insights, and portfolio analysis into actionable pursuit strategies.
• Partner with the Pursuits Principal, Operations to advance consistent practices, resource coordination, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Establish and manage pursuit budgets, levels of effort, and associated costs.
• Maintain awareness of EdSciSport priorities, HDR services, cross-sector capabilities, thought leadership, project experience, and relevant subject-matter experts.
• Apply HDR marketing policies, brand requirements, quality standards, risk-management practices, and pursuit procedures.
• Support a collaborative, inclusive, and sustainable team culture that values accountability, creativity, knowledge sharing, and professional growth.

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise in Adobe InDesign and familiarity with Adobe Creative Cloud products
• Experience managing or developing a team of pursuit or marketing professionals.
• Demonstrated experience in winning high-value contracts in the A/E/C industry
• Knowledge of education, science, sports, or related markets.
• Experience managing pursuit workloads, staffing assignments, budgets, and competing priorities.
• Strong graphic design and layout awareness, with the ability to evaluate how content and visual communication work together.
• Familiarity with CRM systems, pursuit data, knowledge-management tools, and marketing asset platforms.
• Experience coaching technical professionals for shortlist interviews and client presentations.
• Cover Letter submitted with application.

Required Qualifications

• A minimum of 10 years relevant industry experience
• Demonstrated "self-starter" with a history of completing projects with limited oversight
• Deep knowledge of the A/E/C industry's standard approach to procurement of professional services
• Demonstrated ability to motivate and inspire others
• Maintain a professional or engineering registration or certificate or have related technical experience
• Experience in sales and developing effective win strategies
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Ability and desire to travel and engage with others in-person
• Demonstrated experience in writing compelling content based on information from technical staff

What We Believe

HDR is our company. Together, we build on each other's life experiences and perspectives to make great things possible every day. This shapes our collaborative culture, encourages organizational trust and connects us closer to the clients and communities we serve.

Our Commitment

As employee owners, we all have a role in creating an inclusive environment where each of us is welcomed, valued, respected and empowered to bring our authentic selves to work every day.

Our eight Employee Network Groups (Asian Pacific, Black, Hispanic/Latino(a), LGBTQ+, People with Disabilities, Veterans, Women, Young Professionals) help create a sense of belonging and foster a supportive environment where everyone is empowered to engage and contribute. Each group has an executive sponsor and is open to all employees.

We provide a comprehensive benefits package that promotes employee ownership, employee health, performance, and success, which includes medical, dental, vision, short and long-term disability, life insurance, an employee assistance program, paid time away, parental leave, paid holidays, a retirement savings plan with employer match, employee referral bonus and tuition reimbursement. The expected compensation range for this position depends upon skills, experience, education and geographical location. (Stated benefits are for full-time regular positions. Temporary and part-time roles eligible for limited benefits.) Pennington, NJ – $147,637.00 - $210,910.00; Arlington, VA and Seattle, WA – $154,056.00 - $220,080.00

Primary Location: United States-Nebraska-Omaha

Other Locations: United States-Missouri-Kansas City, United States-Virginia-Arlington, United States-New Jersey-Pennington, United States-Washington-Seattle

Industry: Marketing/Communications

Schedule: Full-time

Employee Status: Regular

BusinessClass: Marketing and Admin

Job Posting: Sep 25, 2026

At HDR, we are committed to the principles of employment equity. We are an Affir (https://www.hdrinc.com/equal-employment-opportunity-employer). We consider all qualified applicants, regardless of criminal histories, arrest and conviction records.