Senior Proposal Manager

Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together. McLean, Virginia, USA | Work Model: Onsite Lead a high-performing team of proposal strategists to orchestrate winning, high-stakes narratives that secure global enterprise accounts and drive market share. ABOUT THE TEAM The Appian Proposal Team is a high-impact, global function dedicated to fueling our corporate growth within the AI-Powered Process Automation market. We act as the critical bridge between our cutting-edge technology and global enterprise clients, ensuring our value proposition is clearly articulated in competitive bidding scenarios. By partnering closely with Sales, Legal, and Technical teams, we turn complex technical capabilities into winning business solutions. THE OPPORTUNITY As a Senior Proposal Manager at Appian, you step into a pivotal leadership role where your people management skills directly accelerate our enterprise sales velocity. This is your opportunity to build, mentor, and scale a world-class regional proposal team while acting as a strategic advisor to regional sales executives on multi-million dollar deals. At Appian, you will have the autonomy to drive operational process improvements, shape content strategy, and directly impact revenue generation within the high-growth Enterprise-Grade Orchestration space. WHAT YOU'LL DO • Lead, coach, and mentor a regional team of proposal professionals through active performance management, career mapping, hiring, and continuous enablement. • Manage regional team workloads, staffing assignments, and resource allocation to ensure balanced utilization and flawless proposal execution across the region. • Collaborate closely with regional sales leadership and stakeholders to anticipate proposal-support needs and align on regional revenue targets. • Directly manage complex or high-value proposal efforts when workload capacity demands or deal complexity requires executive-level intervention. • Govern internal content- and knowledge-management repositories, ensuring the creation, maintenance, and strategic improvement of reusable proposal collateral and boilerplate materials. • Drive organizational planning, workforce development, and strategic initiatives related to proposal processes, compliance, and tool adoption. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS • Bachelor’s degree (degrees in writing-intensive fields such as English, Communications, or Business are preferred). • 8+ years of direct proposal development experience in a fast-paced corporate environment. • 5+ years of direct public sector proposal development experience. • Possess a thorough understanding of the U.S. federal and state/local government procurement processes. • Demonstrated ability to motivate, lead, and develop high-performing teams while executing rigorous RFP/Proposal lifecycle best practices. • Exceptional skills in professional writing, editing, document formatting, and executive stakeholder communication. • High level of proficiency with the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel). PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS • Experience with Google Suite, enterprise CRM systems, and dedicated Proposal Management Systems (e.g., Ombud, Loopio, Responsive/RFPIO). • Experience working complex deal captures. • Proven experience leading strategic change management, technology adoption, or process optimization within a sales operations ecosystem. • We value experience with enterpris