Product Strategy & Operations Sr. Lead, Advanced Programs (R6510)

The role

You will help lead proposal strategy, capture support, and daily operations for Shield AI's Advanced Programs organization. You will develop win strategies and lead cross-functional teams on major defense prime proposals.

What you will do

• Partner with Capture Leads and business leaders to develop proposal strategies, win themes and compelling proposal narratives.
• Lead cross-functional proposal efforts across Business Development, Engineering, Program Management, Customer Engagement, Finance and Contracts.
• Translate customer mission needs, requirements and evaluation criteria into compliant, persuasive proposal content.
• Establish and manage proposal plans, schedules, compliance matrices, writing assignments, review cycles and submissions.
• Lead proposal reviews, including blue team, pink, red, gold and executive reviews, and drive corrective actions to closure.
• Develop leadership-ready strategy presentations and capture artifacts.
• Lead responses to RFIs, RFPs, RFQs, white papers and capability statements.
• Monitor and help qualify government and consortium opportunities through SAM.gov and other channels.
• Track proposal activity across the Advanced Programs portfolio and maintain capture trackers and dashboards.
• Support knowledge management and develop reusable capture tools, templates and best practices.

Required qualifications

• Active secret clearance with TS/SCI eligibility.
• Bachelor's degree.
• 12+ years of experience in defense.
• 3+ years of direct proposal manager, business development operations or capture manager experience, including large-scale defense prime proposals valued at $250M+.
• Proven ability to lead matrixed teams through complex proposal cycles involving technical, management, cost, pricing, contracts and executive stakeholders.
• Ability to convert customer mission needs and engineering solutions into clear proposal content and differentiated win themes.
• Demonstrated mastery of proposal compliance, evaluation criteria, schedules, volume management, color-team reviews, production and final delivery.
• Proven ability to influence and align cross-functional teams in a fast-moving environment.
• Exceptional PowerPoint, written communication, editing and quality-control skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• A high degree of ownership, sound judgment, humility and bias toward action.

Nice to have

• Active TS/SCI clearance and experience in advanced programs.
• Experience leading large defense-program captures as a prime contractor, particularly for weapons or similarly complex platforms.
• Expertise in capture strategy, proposal strategy, customer engagement, competitive analysis, price-to-win, market analysis and opportunity qualification.
• Experience with non-traditional defense companies, rapid-acquisition pathways, prototyping programs and transition-to-program-of-record strategies.

Benefits

• Bonus.
• Benefits.
• Equity.

Before you apply

• All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check.
• Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits.
• Temporary employees receive a temporary benefits package after 60 days of employment.

About the company

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company that protects service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation technologies.