Senior Proposal Writer

Senior Proposal Writer

Brillient HQ: Reston, VA - Reston, VA 20190

Overview

Level Experienced

Description

Brillient is seeking an exceptional Senior Proposal Writer who doesn't just produce compliant responses — they produce winning ones. This individual will serve as the cornerstone of our proposal development effort, partnering with capture managers, technical SMEs, and leadership to craft compelling, evaluator-focused narratives that differentiate Brillient in competitive federal procurements. This is a hands-on, high-impact role for a practitioner who thrives in deadline-driven environments, can rapidly absorb complex technical solutions, and knows how to translate dense technical content into prose that scores. You will own proposal volumes end-to-end — from strategy and outline through final production — across FedCiv, Health, DoD, and product/software sales opportunities.

This position follows a hybrid schedule, candidates must be local to the National Capital Region.

Job Duties

Proposal Leadership & Writing

• Lead end-to-end development of proposal volumes including Technical, Management, Past Performance, and Executive Summaries for competitive federal procurements
• Translate complex technical solutions — often developed by engineers, architects, and subject matter experts — into clear, compelling, and evaluator-friendly narrative
• Drive proposal strategy sessions, storyboards, and win theme workshops to ensure every response tells a coherent, differentiated story from cover to cover
• Write, edit, and red-team proposal content to maximize compliance, quality, and discriminating score potential
• Develop and maintain reusable content libraries: boilerplate, past performance write-ups, executive bios, capability statements, and standard proposal sections
• Experience utilizing a myriad of proposal development tools, including AI, as a force multiplier

Collaboration & Solutioning

• Partner closely with technical leads, architects, and program managers to extract solution details and shape them into proposal-ready content under time pressure
• Facilitate structured interviews and working sessions with SMEs who may not be experienced proposal contributors — you know how to draw out the gold
• Support capture strategy by contributing to competitive analysis, win theme development, teaming strategy narratives, and color team preparation
• Collaborate with Contracts, Pricing, and BD leadership to ensure proposal coherence across all volumes and attachments Product & Software Proposals
• Develop compelling value propositions and narrative for proposals involving Brillient software products and SaaS/platform solutions sold into the federal market
• Articulate software capabilities, implementation approaches, and ROI in terms that resonate with both technical evaluators and contracting officers
• Support responses to RFIs, Sources Sought, and capability-based market engagements for product lines

Process & Quality

• Enforce proposal development best practices including compliance matrices, schedule management, annotation, and color review milestones
• Identify and flag proposal risks — staffing gaps, unclear requirements, solution weaknesses — early and constructively
• Conduct post-submission lessons-learned reviews and debrief analysis to continuously sharpen Brillient's proposal quality
• Mentor junior writers and proposal coordinators; help build a culture of proposal excellence across the BD team

Qualifications

Required Education and Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Communications, English, Journalism, Business, Marketing, Technical Writing, or a related field. Equivalent combination of education and relevant federal proposal experience will also be considered.
• Minimum six (6) years of federal proposal writing experience with a demonstrated track record of wins across competitive procurements
• U.S. Citizenship required; ability to obtain and maintain a government security clearance required
• Direct, hands-on writing experience across FedCiv, Federal Health (HHS, CMS, NIH, VA, etc.), and DoD customers — not just team support, but volume ownership
• Proven ability to work with highly technical solution teams (software engineers, cloud architects, data scientists) and distill complex approaches into high-scoring proposal prose
• Deep familiarity with FAR-based acquisitions, LPTA and Best Value trade-off source selections, and the mechanics of federal evaluation criteria
• Proficiency with the Shipley proposal development process or equivalent methodology
• Strong command of proposal compliance: RFP decomposition, compliance matrices, and PWS/SOW cross-referencing
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent proposals with competing deadlines — without sacrificing quality
• Exceptional written English: clear, active-voice, discriminating prose that evaluators want to read