Proposal Manager

Find your path and enjoy the journey at Haley Aldrich . With us, you’ll tackle clients’ most meaningful challenges in the built and natural environments – and, in turn, build stronger communities. You’ll work with teams of passionate colleagues, driven by a commitment to technical excellence and continuous learning. As a company, we aim to build a world where communities go beyond resilience, embracing change as an opportunity to enhance safety, well-being, and quality of life. Join us to accelerate this vision and your professional development. We are looking to add new talent to our growing team! We are currently seeking a Proposal Manager to work in a strategic role with highly skilled professionals on diverse project teams in a dynamic environment. This is an excellent opportunity to join a growing group and company and get involved in a variety of projects for a diverse range of clients. In this strategic role, you will lead the development of compelling proposals for our engineering and environmental consulting services. Working closely with engineers, scientists, constructors, client leaders, and business developers, you will translate complex technical concepts into clear, persuasive, and client-focused messages. This position extends beyond proposal administration and compliance management, requiring independent judgment, strong facilitation, technical storytelling, and the confidence to challenge generic content, uncover meaningful differentiators, and articulate why Haley Aldrich offers the right approach for each client. This is a full-time, hybrid position located in our Seattle, WA office (preferred) with consideration in any of our other mainland west coast offices - Portland, OR, Walnut Creek, CA, Oakland, CA, San Jose CA, Costa Mesa, CA or San Diego, CA. DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES In this position, you will: Lead complex, high-value pursuits from capture planning through proposal submission, interview preparation, and post-submittal evaluation, ensuring each pursuit reflects a deliberate strategy rather than a compliance-driven response. Analyze RFP requirements, client priorities, evaluation criteria, and competitive context to develop tailored pursuit strategies, win themes, value propositions, and messaging that improve responsiveness and client relevance. Facilitate kickoff meetings, strategy sessions, reviews, and working sessions that produce clear decisions, assignments, risk awareness, and alignment around a differentiated approach. Partner directly with technical and client-facing teams to define client challenges, proposed solutions, project risks, meaningful differentiators, and measurable value. Translate complex technical information into concise, client-focused narratives while shaping executive summaries, technical approaches, project descriptions, qualifications, resumes, and other content that influences evaluator decisions. Strengthen proposal quality by identifying gaps, unsupported claims, inconsistencies, and generic language and guiding teams toward clear, credible, and differentiated content. Manage pursuit schedules, reviews, production, compliance, and submission requirements while maintaining a strong focus on strategy and quality. Support interview planning and preparation , including message development, presentation content, team coaching, and rehearsal facilitation. Conduct post-submittal evaluations and apply feedback and lessons learned to improve future pursuit strategies and proposal practices. Manage multiple concurrent pursuits, contributors, deadlines, and stakeholder expectations while maintaining effective communication and sound professional judgment.) Leverage ability to effectively utilize AI and automation tools to reduce administrative effort, accelerate delivery, and focus time on higher-value strategic activities. Perform all work in accordance with company and client health and safety protocols. Demonstrate the company’s foundational safety behaviors. SKILLS/EXPERIENCE Minimum Skills and Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, English, Business, Engineering, Environmental Science, or a related field. Minimum 8 years relevant experience and prefer 4 years of relevant AEC proposal development, pursuit management, marketing, communications, business development, or related professional-services experience. Strong critical thinking and analytical judgment, including the confidence to question weak assumptions, recycled content, unsupported messaging, and drafts that merely restate the RFP. Exceptional facilitation and communication skills, including the ability to draw expertise from busy technical professionals, manage competing viewpoints, resolve conflicting input, and guide teams toward decisions. Excellent writing and editing skills, with demonstrated ability to produce concise, technically accurate, client-focused content without oversimplifying the technical approach. Demonstrated success developing opportunity-specific pursuit strategies, win themes, value propositions, differentiators, and proposal improvements that strengthen responsiveness, clarity, credibility, and competitiveness. Strong organizational discipline and professional judgment, with the ability to manage multiple pursuits, contributors, deadlines, and stakeholder expectations while keeping strategy and quality ahead of process, boilerplate, or technology shortcuts. Ability to work collaboratively with engineers, scientists, constructors, client leaders, business developers, and other technical and corporate professionals. Ability to work a hybrid schedule from the Seattle office approximately three days per week, ideally Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and additional days as business needs require. Preferred Skills: AEC proposal leadership experience and the ability to quickly learn Haley Aldrich’s markets, services, technical capabilities, client relationships, and competitive position. Experience supporting engineering, environm