Senior Proposal Manager - Commercial Energy Business

Leidos; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 108,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos Energy is seeking a Senior Proposal Manager to lead complex, strategic pursuits from planning through submission and post-submittal activities. You will partner with Growth/BD, technical leaders, pricing, contracts, and senior stakeholders to win, while ensuring full compliance.

The role requires deep knowledge of governance, quality reviews, and messaging that differentiates Leidos in a competitive marketplace; you will guide senior professionals and maintain momentum with urgency and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with at least eight years leading complex proposals.
• Proven track record managing cross-functional pursuit teams through full lifecycle.
• Ability to translate requirements into differentiated win strategies.
• Expert knowledge of proposal compliance, governance, and quality reviews.
• Strong leadership, facilitation, and communication with senior stakeholders.
• Experience with color reviews, risk, and pricing reviews and content planning.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex, strategic, high-value commercial pursuits from planning to submission.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams with clear expectations and milestones.
• Serve as proposal strategy lead to Growth, engineering, operations, pricing, and contracts.
• Translate customer needs into cohesive, customer-focused proposal strategies.
• Develop win themes, discriminators, value propositions, and messaging.
• Manage compliance, structure, content plans, reviews, and decision points.
• Lead color/team reviews, recovery activities, and senior-level reviews.
• Mentor team members and drive continuous improvement in processes and templates.

Skills

Proposal leadership

Cross-functional teamwork

Strategic thinking

Executive communication

Negotiation

Mentoring

Risk assessment

Education

Bachelor's degree with 8+ yrs experience

Tools

Microsoft Word

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Excel

SharePoint

Job description

Description

Leidos Energy is seeking an accomplished Senior Proposal Manager to lead complex, strategic, high-value, high-visibility, and high-risk commercial pursuits.

This individual will lead cross-functional proposal teams and serve as a strategic partner to Growth/Business Development, technical and operational leadership, pricing, contracts, and senior stakeholders.

The Senior Proposal Manager will drive teams toward cohesive, customer-focused winning strategies that differentiate Leidos while ensuring full compliance with customer requirements. Success requires the ability to lead experienced and senior professionals with differing technical, business, or strategic perspectives; respectfully challenge assumptions; facilitate decisions; and maintain momentum with urgency and purpose.

The successful candidate will have deep knowledge of industry-standard proposal management practices, governance, compliance, and quality and be able to articulate the purpose and business value of proposal activities, including color reviews, risk and pricing reviews, compliance reviews, and quality reviews. This individual must apply these practices intelligently based on the needs of the pursuit rather than simply following process.

Primary Responsibilities

• Lead complex, strategic, high-value, high-visibility, and/or high-risk commercial pursuits from pre-proposal planning through submission and post-submittal activities.
• Lead cross-functional teams, establishing clear expectations, accountability, decision points, and momentum throughout the pursuit.
• Serve as proposal strategy lead and strategic partner to Growth/Business Development, senior engineers and technical leaders, operations, pricing, contracts, and leadership.
• Navigate differing perspectives, respectfully challenge assumptions, and drive timely decisions that strengthen the solution and Leidos' competitive position.
• Translate customer requirements, competitive intelligence, technical solutions, and business objectives into a cohesive, customer-focused proposal strategy.
• Lead development of compelling win themes, discriminators, value propositions, proof points, and messaging that clearly communicate why Leidos' solution is different and why that difference matters to the customer.
• Analyze RFPs, RFQs, RFIs, and other commercial solicitations to identify requirements, evaluation criteria, risks, gaps, dependencies, and strategic response considerations.
• Own proposal compliance and establish proposal structure, schedules, compliance matrices, content plans, author assignments, review plans, checkpoints, and decision points.
• Lead kickoffs, solutioning and strategy sessions, color/team reviews, recovery activities, senior-level reviews, and final quality reviews.
• Tailor proposal processes and governance based on opportunity value, complexity, competitive position, risk, schedule, and customer expectations while maintaining required compliance and quality.
• Provide clear, constructive guidance to authors, engineers, SMEs, and leaders to improve responsiveness, differentiation, customer focus, and proposal quality.
• Ensure technical, management, contractual, risk, and pricing strategies align with the overall proposal strategy.
• Identify execution, compliance, strategy, and schedule risks early; develop recovery plans; and elevate issues requiring leadership decisions.
• Maintain team focus and momentum through challenging schedules, competing priorities, ambiguity, and changing customer requirements.
• Mentor proposal contributors and support continuous improvement of proposal processes, governance, templates, tools, training, and best practices, including lessons learned.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree with at least eight (8) years of relevant proposal, business development, or related experience, including significant experience leading complex commercial proposals. Additional relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a degree, consistent with Leidos requirements for the position level.
• Demonstrated success leading complex, strategic, high-value, high-visibility, and/or high-risk pursuits through the complete proposal lifecycle.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence senior engineers, technical leaders, and business leaders; navigate competing viewpoints; facilitate difficult discussions; establish alignment; and drive timely decisions.
• Strong understanding of commercial procurement, competitive proposal development, customer evaluation processes, and proposal strategy.
• Demonstrated expertise translating customer requirements, competitive positioning, technical solutions, and business objectives into compelling, differentiated proposal strategies and content.
• Expert knowledge of proposal compliance, lifecycle processes, and governance, including compliance matrices, color/team reviews, risk and pricing reviews, review checkpoints, and final quality reviews.
• Ability to articulate the purpose and business value of proposal processes and gain team commitment to the appropriate level of rigor.
• Strong experience developing win themes, discriminators, value propositions, executive summaries, proof points, and customer-focused messaging.
• Strong leadership, facilitation, negotiation, and communication skills, with the ability to respectfully challenge senior stakeholders and drive accountability and results.
• Expert Microsoft Word skills and exceptional written, verbal, editing, and presentation preparation capabilities.
• Ability to synthesize complex technical and business information and communicate it clearly and persuasively.
• Demonstrated ability to lead geographically dispersed, cross-functional teams in a fast-paced commercial environment with rapid-turn pursuits and multiple concurrent priorities.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and SharePoint.
• Due to the nature of the role, U.S. Citizenship is required.

Preferred Qualifications

• APMP, Shipley, SMPS, or other recognized proposal-management certification.
• Experience supporting engineering, energy, infrastructure, utilities, or other complex commercial/technical markets.
• Significant experience leading large or strategically important commercial pursuits.
• Experience in high-volume, fast-paced commercial proposal environments requiring speed, agility, customer focus, and disciplined decision-making.
• Experience leading senior-level proposal strategy sessions, color reviews, and recovery efforts.
• Experience developing scalable or tiered proposal processes based on opportunity size, complexity, risk, and schedule.
• Experience mentoring technical staff new to proposal development.
• Experience with electronic procurement and proposal submission portals.
• Experience leading or supporting live orals, presentations, and/or demonstrations.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo - because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 - and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

October 14, 2026

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range:

Pay Range $107,900.00 - $195,050.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline onlyand not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

About Leidos

Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $16.7 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2025. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Pay and Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement. More details are available at www.leidos.com/careers/pay-benefits.

Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.

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