Capture and Proposal Lead

About the team
The OpenAI for Government team is a dynamic, mission-driven group leveraging frontier AI to transform how governments achieve their missions. Our team works to empower public servants with secure, compliant AI tools like ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Gov, and specialized national-security models that address government's mission needs, meet their technical requirements, and provide the highest degree of reliability and safety.

As part of the OpenAI for Government team you will work across federal, state, and local governments, helping to accelerate adoption through hands‑on support, tailored training, and early insights—so civil servants can spend less time on red tape and more on meaningful work. If you're passionate about responsibly deploying frontier AI to uplift public institutions and transform how government works, we want you on our team.

About the role

As a Capture and Proposal Lead, you’ll identify and drive key opportunities through the government sales cycle, from pipeline generation to closure. You’ll collaborate closely with industry partners, potential customers, policy makers, and internal experts to help government customers advance their missions through AI.

This role is based in Washington DC. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week. We offer relocation assistance.

In this role, you'll:

• Pipeline Development: Partner with O4G GTM teams to identify, build, and maintain a multi-year pipeline of strategic opportunities.

• Capture Management: Lead the full capture lifecycle — from opportunity identification and qualification through win strategy, teaming, proposal, and award.

• Proposal Leadership: Own development of compliant, compelling proposals that clearly communicate OpenAI’s value, differentiators, and alignment with customer missions.

• Content Development: Write and edit proposal sections, weaving together inputs from subject matter experts into cohesive, persuasive narratives.

• Solutioning Support: Collaborate with technical and product teams to shape innovative AI-driven solutions and articulate win themes.

• Compliance & Quality: Ensure all responses meet solicitation requirements, government acquisition regulations, and OpenAI standards.

• Knowledge Management: Maintain and grow a proposal content library, enabling reuse and continuous improvement.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work across sales, product, legal, and engineering to gather information, develop strategies, and deliver polished submissions.

• Continuous Improvement: Capture lessons learned and refine capture/proposal processes for greater effectiveness over time.
  

We're seeking someone with experience including:

• 10+ years selling information technology services to governments, including US federal and state and local governments

• Active U.S. Government TS/SCI clearance

• Designing and executing complex deal and capture strategies within government contexts, with deep familiarity with government contracting, security clearances, and procurement processes.

• Leading capture and proposal efforts for complex technology or government contracts, including compliant and compelling RFx responses.

• Building trusted relationships and working directly with senior government executives and decision-makers.

• Communicating technical and strategic concepts clearly to both government customers and internal stakeholders.

• Leading high-visibility engagements such as customer briefings, industry events, and senior-level meetings.

• Managing deadlines and cross-functional stakeholders in fast-paced, high-pressure environments.

• Exceptional writing and editing skills, able to translate technical concepts into persuasive narratives.

• Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to thrive in a fast-moving, high-impact environment.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Enjoy turning complex technical ideas into clear, persuasive writing.

• Get energy from working across legal, product, engineering, and sales teams to solve problems together.

• Like the challenge of shaping strategy for competitive government procurements.

• Stay calm and focused when juggling multiple deadlines.

• Take pride in producing polished, compliant documents that win.

• Naturally look for ways to make processes simpler, faster, and more effective.

• Are curious about emerging technology and eager to help government customers understand how to use it.

• See ambiguity as an opportunity to build structure and clarity.

• Care about mission impact and want to help government agencies use AI responsibly and effectively.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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