SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Salary: USD 140,000 - 150,000 / annual
GoGuardian is seeking a Senior Bid & Capture Manager to own end-to-end proposal development and contract vehicle strategy for K-12 education sales. This role sits on the Sales Enablement team and combines two critical functions: bid management (winning competitive pursuits through proposals) and capture strategy (positioning the company on contract vehicles and funding streams before opportunities arise).
Bid Responsibilities:
- Own complete proposal lifecycle: intake, bid/no-bid decisions, compliance review, writing, and submission across RFPs, RFIs, RFQs, catalog bids, renewals, and sole-source justifications
- Analyze solicitations to identify evaluator scoring logic and build winning response strategies
- Coordinate contributions from sales, curriculum, product, engineering, legal, security, and privacy teams
- Partner with sales, finance, and product marketing on competitive pricing, bundling, discounting, and multi-year structures
- Build systematic competitive intelligence through public records requests and lost-bid analysis
- Maintain proposal content library, customer reference bench, presentation templates, and master narrative
- Produce enterprise proposals, quotes, order forms, and renewal packages outside formal RFP processes
- Design and implement AI-forward bid operations including portal monitoring, opportunity-to-catalog matching, and assisted drafting using tools like Responsive or Starbridge
Capture Responsibilities:
- Track federal, state, and local funding streams (Titles I-IV, IDEA, state technology allocations, E-Rate, private/foundation sources) and map to districts before buying windows open
- Build enablement layer for field: eligibility guidance, deadlines, positioning language, and sales training by state/region/segment
- Own roadmap for cooperative and state contract vehicle portfolio (Sourcewell, TIPS, BuyBoard, regional education service agencies)
- Lead responses to cooperative solicitations and build relationships with lead agencies and contract administrators
- Manage vendor lists, buying lists, security questionnaires, and regulatory filings with centralized tracking of terms, expiries, and renewal dates
- Report monthly on submissions, win rate, cycle time, revenue influenced, vehicle utilization, and pipeline coverage
The ideal candidate has won business in competitive EdTech or public sector markets, understands K-12 funding mechanics, has worked with major contract vehicles, and can credibly engage with cooperatives, legal teams, and sales representatives.
Requirements:
- 7-10 years of experience in proposal writing, bid management, public sector capture, contract vehicle management, or SLED contract management with demonstrable wins in competitive markets
- Fluency with AI tooling and clear judgment about where it adds value versus introduces risk in writing and compliance functions
- Strong commercial judgment: ability to read pricing models, build multi-year offers, defend value against cheaper competitors, and evaluate administrative fee schedules
- Familiarity with at least one major cooperative or state contract vehicle (from supplier, cooperative staff, or public agency buyer perspective)
- Ability to translate funding and procurement complexity into actionable guidance for sales teams
- Comfortable owning broad function independently: prioritizing competing deadlines, declining low-probability bids, managing subject matter experts with competing priorities
- Process and systems building capability
- Strong understanding of K-12 buyer and district procurement cycles
- Working knowledge of public procurement practice (competitive solicitation standards, sole-source justification, threshold rules)
- Preferred: APMP, NIGP-CPP, CPPO, CPPB, or CPSM certification
