Senior Solicitation Specialist

The Work

In this role, you will lead assigned support activities across the solicitation and peer-review lifecycle, from solicitation development and proposal intake through panel execution, selection support, and closeout. You will organize panels and sub-panels, coordinate proposal and reviewer data, confirm venue and technology needs, interface with reviewers, monitor progress and quality, and report significant delivery risks. You will also provide day-to-day work direction and quality review for assigned support staff.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work with program and project leadership to plan and administer proposal review activities across federal research solicitations, proposal receipt, peer review, selection support, and closeout.
• Serve as a task lead for on-site and remote peer-review panels and lead the assigned support team through planning, execution, follow-up, and closeout.
• Develop and maintain integrated workplans, schedules, milestone charts, trackers, checklists, roles, and operating procedures for assigned review activities.
• Organize panels and sub-panels and ensure that proposal assignments, reviewer communications, meeting logistics, venue needs, and information-technology requirements are addressed.
• Provide solicitation, proposal, reviewer, and panel data in required formats; develop summary statistics and analytics; and conduct quality-control reviews for accuracy and completeness.
• Lead assigned solicitation and proposal administration activities, including data tracking, approved postings and notifications, and use of grants-management and peer-review systems.
• Interface with panelists and reviewers regarding proposal review, travel, schedules, meeting access, remote communications, deadlines, and required documentation.
• Take notes on panel proceedings as requested and ensure that review records, decision-support materials, approved communications, and closeout documentation are complete and accurate.
• Monitor activities against solicitation deadlines and report significant slippages, delays, impediments, and proposed corrective actions to project leadership.
• Ensure assigned work conforms to established quality standards, schedules, confidentiality requirements, conflict-of-interest procedures, and approved review processes.
• Manage or operate logistics systems that track reviewer information, including sensitive financial and personally identifiable information, in coordination with logistics staff.

Basic Qualifications:

• High school diploma or GED; a college degree is preferred.
• At least 10 years of progressively responsible professional experience providing business-process support; or a bachelor's degree and at least 5 years of progressively responsible professional experience providing business-process support.
• Willingness and ability to travel domestically and provide on-site support for peer-review panels, workshops, and program meetings when required.
• Must successfully complete a federal background investigation and obtain and maintain a Personal Identity Verification credential for required facility and system access.

Professional Skills:

• Demonstrated competence using workplace desktop applications such as Microsoft Office or Microsoft 365.
• Strong planning and organizational skills, with the ability to lead detailed workflows across concurrent panels, deliverables, and firm deadlines.
• Ability to interpret requirements, translate them into operating plans, monitor progress, and recommend corrective action when risks arise.
• Clear and professional written and verbal communication with reviewers, scientific and technical experts, federal program staff, vendors, and delivery teams.
• Sound judgment when resolving workflow, reviewer, data, technology, venue, schedule, or quality issues during active review periods.
• Strong attention to detail when handling proposal assignments, reviewer information, financial records, panel documentation, analytics, and quality-control activities.
• Ability to lead through influence, coordinate assigned support staff, review deliverables, and maintain accountability.

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Experience serving as a task lead for federal grants, research solicitations, merit review, proposal review, or scientific or technical peer-review panels.
• Experience supporting a federal research agency or another organization that manages competitive research funding.
• Experience using grants-management, peer-review, proposal-processing, reviewer-management, event-management, or virtual meeting systems; familiarity with Grants.gov is a plus.
• Experience developing proposal or review summary statistics, analytics, status reports, decision-support materials, or quality-control documentation.
• Experience coordinating concurrent panels or review cycles and applying confidentiality, conflict-of-interest, records-management, accessibility, or information-security procedures.

*** Note this is a contingent role.

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