Sales Project Manager

Fives; Louisville (KY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Fives in Louisville, KY is seeking a Sales Project Manager who runs the pursuit from intake to handoff. You own the proposal budget, schedule, and strategy, ensuring milestones are met and that engineers can focus on engineering.

You will decide when opportunities enter the department, balance costs, risks, and deliverables, and guide the bid process with a clear plan, defending the numbers to customers and management. Travel up to 20% may be required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent; 8–12 years managing complex proposals.
• Ownership of a project or proposal budget with accountability.
• Ability to say no under deadline pressure and coordinate cross‑functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Review incoming RFPs, contracts, and statements of work for risk.
• Own the proposal budget and schedule; baseline and track.
• Document bid strategy and ensure specification compliance.
• Manage risk assessment and mitigation in CRD and estimates.
• Run quality checks and capture lessons learned.

Skills

Communication

Writing

Presentation

Budgeting

Scheduling

Analytical thinking

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

8–12 years proposal/bids experience

PMP or equivalent advantage

Tools

Excel

MS Project

Job description

Position Summary

Position summary

The Sales Project Manager runs the pursuit.

Every proposal has a schedule, a budget, a strategy, a risk position, and a set of deliverables with names against them. The Sales Project Manager owns all of it, so that the engineers on the pursuit can spend their time engineering.

The Sales Project Manager decides when work enters the department, what the pursuit costs us to produce, who owes what and by when, and whether the package is ready to go to the customer. Work is not scheduled onto this team except through a Sales Project Manager.

Character Qualifications

Innovation – We create a culture of relentless improvement of solutions and processes to make every day better.

Integrity – We are open, honest, and committed to giving the straight story every time.

Service – We serve our clients, families, communities, and most importantly our people who are empowered and safe in making decisions and taking actions that dare to make us better.

Ownership – We take full, personal, individual responsibility for our actions and our work.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Intake & qualification

• Review the incoming RFP, contract, terms and conditions and statement of work for risk before the pursuit is accepted.
• Decide when and whether an opportunity enters the department, and prioritize it against work in flight. Work reaches this team through an Offering Manager or it does not reach it.
• Own the proposal budget: what this pursuit costs Fives to produce, by role and by hour, and escape before an overrun rather than after it.

Proposal assembly

• Own the specification compliance grid and confirm the proposal answers what was asked.
• Build and own the proposal schedule at milestone level, baseline it, track against the baseline, and level workload rather than absorbing peaks.
• Document the bid strategy and hold the team to it as the pursuit develops.
• Own the risk assessment: collect input from every contributor, document the position, and carry each mitigation into the CRD, the estimate, the proposal, the schedule and the subcontracts.
• Run the quality check before release, validate the KPIs, and capture lessons learned into the next pursuit and the department standards.

Contributes to

• The bid/no-bid technical recommendation
• The technical basis for acceptance criteria and test procedures
• Mentoring, onboarding and 30/60/90 schedules
• The standardization program and product classification

Working with the rest of the team

PartnerThey bringYou keepSolutions EngineerThe operation design and its breakdown into subsystem scopeThe schedule, the budget, and who works each subsystemApplication EngineerEquipment, detailed layout, manifest, BOM, CRD and the estimateThe deliverable dates and the hours they are worked againstControls Application EngineerControls architecture and the electrical estimateThe deliverable dates and the hours they are worked againstSenior Application Engineer / Senior Controls Application EngineerThe estimating standard and sign-off on the numbersThe gate that says the package is ready to leaveSales / Account ManagementThe customer relationship, commercial strategy, and the bid/no-bid decisionScope discipline, the pursuit schedule, and what it costs us to chaseOperations / Project ManagementExecution after award, and the acceptance criteriaTurnover completeness at handover

Qualifications

Education and experience

• Bachelor’s degree, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 8 to 12 years managing complex proposals, bids, or capital projects, including schedule and budget ownership.
• Required: demonstrated ownership of a project or proposal budget, with accountability for the outcome.
• Required: the standing to hold a deadline against pressure from Sales, Engineering and Operations. This role is only useful if it can say no.
• Preferred, not required: material handling, capital equipment, or systems integration experience. PMP or equivalent an advantage.
• Fluent with project scheduling tools and strong Excel. Technical literacy sufficient to read a layout, a manifest and an estimate, and to challenge what they say.
• An engineering degree is not required for this role.

Skills

Language. Reads and interprets specifications, contracts, terms and conditions, and statements of work. Writes clearly enough that minutes and action items settle arguments rather than start them. Presents pursuit status to senior management and to customers. Mathematical. Works with rates, percentages, hours and cost. Reads an estimate well enough to question it. Reasoning. Defines problems, collects data, establishes facts, and draws valid conclusions. Distinguishes a schedule slip caused by a blocker from one caused by drift.

Travel

Travel to customer offices and job sites as the pursuit requires, typically under 20%.

Progression

The Sales Project Manager role has three levels: Junior Sales Project Manager (under five years, carrying a defined scope under review), Sales Project Manager, and Senior Sales Project Manager. There is no Principal level in this role. The job grows with the size and complexity of the pursuits you carry rather than with headcount, and the technical route does not run through managing people. Line management is a separate route, through Supervisor, Manager and Director of Proposal Development, open by choice rather than by seniority.

Physical demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to walk, sit, and reach with hands and arms. The employee is occasionally required to stand and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, and ability to adjust focus. Travel via automobile and/or commercial airline to customer offices for meetings, vendor’s plants, and job site to coordinate the conveyors or equipment with the building and installers.

Work environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally exposed to moving mechanical parts, outside weather conditions, risk of electrical shock, and risk of radiation. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate, unless performing work in shop or field conditions.