Senior Government Technical Proposal Writer

About the role

As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you’ll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join colleagues in bringing the company’s Mission to life every single day to enable customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer by developing solutions for some of the world’s toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, ensuring food safety or helping find cures for cancer.

Responsibilities

• Government Proposal Development and Writing
  • Lead development and writing of technical narratives for complex U.S. Government proposals, RFPs, RFIs, Sources Sought Notices, white papers, capability statements, technical presentations, and other federal acquisition documents.
  • Review solicitations, amendments, SOWs/PWSs, technical requirements, instructions to offerors, and evaluation criteria and translate requirements into structured proposal content.
  • Develop proposal narratives that provide evaluators with clear evidence of the company’s understanding, technical approach, management approach, capabilities, experience, risk controls, and discriminators.
  • Tailor technical content to the mission, acquisition environment, evaluation methodology, and technical perspective of the Government customer.
  • Develop scientific and technical narratives appropriate for NIH and HHS reviewers, including content that communicates scientific rationale, technical methodology, operational controls, research support capabilities, biospecimen integrity, quality systems, and public-health or research mission impact.
  • Develop technical and operational narratives appropriate for DoD/DoW and other mission-oriented federal reviewers, emphasizing mission requirements, execution methodology, readiness, scalability, security, risk management, schedule performance, quality, and measurable outcomes.
  • Integrate technical, operational, management, quality, transition, staffing, risk, and past-performance information into a consistent proposal narrative.
  • Ensure proposal narratives answer the Government’s requirements and evaluation criteria rather than providing generic descriptions of corporate capabilities.
• SME Engagement and Technical Content Development
  • Lead structured interviews and working sessions with scientists, operations personnel, quality professionals, program managers, technical leaders, and other SMEs to obtain information required for proposal development.
  • Independently research assigned technical areas and develop initial proposal narratives for SME review rather than relying on SMEs to produce finished written content.
  • Translate SME discussions, technical documentation, processes, procedures, data, and scientific concepts into concise proposal narratives while preserving technical accuracy.
  • Identify information gaps, inconsistencies, unsupported claims, and areas requiring additional SME input.
  • Develop targeted questions that allow SMEs to validate technical approaches and refine proposal content.
  • Coordinate SME reviews and incorporate technical corrections while maintaining consistency in voice, terminology, messaging, and proposal strategy.
• Proposal Strategy and Competitive Positioning
  • Work with proposal leadership, Contracts, Business Development, and technical leadership to develop proposal messaging, win themes, discriminators, proof points, and technical positioning.
  • Identify competitive differentiators and convert capabilities into customer-focused benefits supported by evidence.
  • Evaluate draft narratives from the perspective of a Government evaluator and identify weaknesses that could reduce evaluation scores or create uncertainty regarding the proposed approach.
  • Support proposal color-team and structured review processes, including Pink Team, Red Team, Gold Team, and final compliance reviews, as applicable.
  • Provide actionable recommendations to strengthen technical content, evaluator readability, compliance, and competitive positioning.
• Competitive Intelligence and Government Market Analysis
  • Conduct research and analysis of federal customers, incumbent contractors, competitors, acquisition strategies, contract vehicles, procurement trends, agency priorities, and emerging requirements.
  • Maintain awareness of federal market developments affecting biorepository services, biospecimen management, pharmaceutical manufacturing, biopharma services, clinical trial support, cell and gene therapy, logistics, and related life-sciences markets.
  • Analyze competitor capabilities, contract history, positioning, partnerships, and potential strengths and weaknesses relevant to specific opportunities.
  • Develop competitor profiles, customer intelligence summaries, market analyses, and opportunity-specific research for proposal and capture teams.
  • Identify market trends and potential changes in Government requirements that could affect future opportunities or proposal positioning.
• AI-Enabled Proposal Development
  • Demonstrate proficiency using approved generative AI and other AI-enabled technologies to support proposal development activities.
  • Use AI tools, when permitted, to accelerate solicitation analysis, requirements decomposition, research synthesis, content organization, first-draft development, editing, consistency reviews, compliance analysis, and knowledge retrieval.
  • Develop effective prompts and structured workflows for technical and proposal-writing applications.
  • Critically evaluate AI-generated content for factual accuracy, technical validity, solicitation compliance, unsupported assertions, bias, source reliability, and appropriate use.
  • Maintain human accountability for all proposal content and do not rely on AI-generated information without appropriate validation.
  • Comply with company policies and Government requirements concerning confidential, proprietary, controlled, export-controlled, source-selection-sensitive, or other protected information when using AI technologies.
  • Identify opportunities to improve proposal-development processes through responsible use of AI, automation, and knowledge-management tools.
• Proposal Compliance, Formatting, and Production
  • Develop and maintain proposal compliance matrices and support traceability between solicitation requirements, evaluation criteria, and proposal responses.
  • Apply solicitation-specific formatting requirements, including page limitations, fonts, margins, headers and footers, section numbering, cross-references, tables, figures, attachments, and file specifications.
  • Perform detailed document quality-control reviews before submission.
  • Perform or coordinate Section 508 accessibility reviews and remediation of proposal documents, including headings, reading order, tables, figures, alternative text, document properties, hyperlinks, and PDF accessibility requirements, as applicable to the solicitation.
  • Maintain document version control and support controlled integration of content from multiple contributors.
  • Coordinate with proposal team members to produce submission-ready Microsoft Word and PDF documents.
  • Support maintenance of proposal templates, reusable content, technical libraries, past-performance information, proposal databases, lessons learned, and other knowledge-management resources.
• Senior-Level Responsibilities
  • Operate independently on complex proposal assignments with limited direction.
  • Provide technical-writing leadership during proposal development and establish writing standards, terminology, narrative structure, and document consistency.
  • Coach SMEs and proposal contributors on effective Government proposal writing and evaluator-focused communication.
  • Review and edit content prepared by other writers and contributors and provide guidance to improve technical accuracy, clarity, compliance, and persuasive value.
  • Support development and continuous improvement of proposal-writing processes, templates, tools, style guides, AI-enabled workflows, and quality-control procedures.
  • Manage multiple assignments and shifting priorities during active proposal periods while maintaining submission deadlines and document quality.
  • Exercise judgment regarding when additional technical, contractual, operational, or management input is required to support proposal assertions.
  • Serve as a senior resource for translating complex scientific and operational information into Government-facing technical communications.

Requirements

• Advanced technical writing, proposal writing, editing, analytical, and information-synthesis skills.
• Demonstrated experience developing complex technical proposals for U.S. Government customers.
• Demonstrated understanding of federal solicitation structures, proposal instructions, evaluation criteria, SOWs/PWSs, compliance requirements, and competitive proposal-development processes.
• Ability to write technical narratives that communicate effectively to scientific, technical, operational, acquisition, and program-management evaluators.
• Ability to understand complex scientific or technical subject matter and develop accurate initial written content for SME review.
• Demonstrated ability to interview SMEs, obtain technical information, identify content gaps, and convert technical discussions into proposal-ready content.