Bid Operations Lead, Public Sector

Bid Operations Lead, Public Sector

Location: Remote (local to Nashville, TN preferred)

Onsite initial training and occasional multi-day in-person workshops required.

Are you the person who insists on getting the details right? The one who reads someone else's work and quietly notices what they missed? Do you find proposals interesting rather than tedious, and an absolute deadline sharpening rather than terrifying? If so, we want to talk.

We respond to RFPs from state governments for data and technology services. Most bidders submit robotic restatements of the RFP... and most lose. When we run our process well, we win the ones we shouldn't, including even RFPs the incumbent had written for themselves.

We do that through a creative solution and pricing strategy paired with disciplined execution: clean design, ruthless prioritization of the win theme, and zero tolerance for procedural failures. This role owns that execution.

We are looking for a lead who can:

• Run each RFP response end-to-end as a 3-4 week project with an absolute deadline (late by one minute = disqualification; we submit 24 hours early, every time)
• Read a 50-page RFP, find the contradictions and ambiguities, and decide who resolves what
• Direct the bid team, including an offshore support team, with explicit authority to assign work, enforce standards, and escalate directly to the CEO
• Translate the CEO's win theme into a polished, differentiated document that argues a position rather than restates the RFP
• Hold a higher quality bar than contributors will naturally produce, and refuse to ship a section that is not ready
• Make every page earn its place: brevity is the soul of wit, and excess content is a failure to control the reader's attention
• Knock down barriers when a contributor is late or a draft is wrong, rather than send a polite follow-up
• Stay calm in the final 14 hours of a bid and then shift gears to reflective process work the next week without losing energy
• Between bids, design and lead a continuous improvement process for our bids
• Request and analyze bid tabulations from past submissions to identify where we won, lost, and why
• Build and maintain a real content library — not boilerplate — that elevates reuse without flattening voice
• Develop training that bid contributors must complete before joining a bid team

Bonus points if you bring:

• Experience in or alongside sales, business development, or commercial functions (if "sales" makes you wince, this role will not work)
• Experience in project or program management with hard-deadline document deliverables
• Experience leading teams across time zones
• Familiarity with state or federal government contracting (we would rather teach you the domain than untrain bad habits, so this is genuinely optional)

We do not want you to make the leap without knowing what success looks like, so here it is:

• Bids submitted on time, every time, with zero procedural disqualifications
• A measurable lift in win rate against the trailing baseline as the process matures

A few honest things this role is not:

• This is not a traditional proposal management role in the Shipley / compliance-matrix tradition — we are deliberately not hiring that profile
• This is not a solution architect or pricing strategist role — those calls are made by the CEO
• This is not a purely process role — winning matters more than process compliance, always

In return, we offer:

• Direct partnership with the CEO, who will work side-by-side with you through your first several bids, including extended in-person whiteboard sessions, to transfer the approach that has driven past wins
• Explicit authority to speak on the CEO's behalf inside the company on bids, with backing on escalations
• A competitive base salary, performance bonuses tied to bid wins, and a standard benefits package

We need to know — can you make this happen? If so, we definitely need to talk.

Required Experience & Skills

• Demonstrated ability to run projects to hard deadlines assertively, while maintaining composure, particularly in high-pressure situations
• 3 years experience in project or program management with heavy documentation deliverables
• Experience in or alongside sales, business development, or commercial functions.
• Experience leading teams across time zones
• Some exposure to proposal writing/managing is preferred
• Junior - Mid Level proposal managers are encouraged to apply

Who We Are:

Double Line is a growing technology consulting firm dedicated to driving digital transformation across the public sector. As part of LearningMate and Straive - an EQT portfolio company - we partner with government agencies and nonprofits to tackle complex data and technology challenges in education, health, and justice.

With over a decade of experience, we serve as long-term strategic partners, offering deep expertise in data architecture and innovative technological solutions. We thrive on complexity, turning ambitious data visions into operational realities that make an impact.

Why Join Double Line?

• A mission-driven company with a long-term focus on helping the world by untangling the technical knots that plague state and local governments, particularly in education
• A home where your voice matters and you can affect real change
• An employer who cares about you, makes sure you're engaged with exciting work, and offers robust benefits, 401k with employer match, and a great culture

If you’re passionate about building a better future for public sector agencies and the communities they serve by tackling complex data and technology challenges that make an impact, we want to hear from you!

Learn more at wearedoubleline.com.

Double Line, Inc. and LearningMate are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building a diverse team and an inclusive environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, or veteran status.

We do not sponsor applicants for work visas at this time.