Lead Proposals Manager

At Axon, we’re on a mission to Protect Life. We’re explorers, pursuing society’s most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other. Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you’ll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter.

Your Impact

As a Lead Proposal Manager, you will lead Axon’s most complex and highest-impact RFP and tender responses, proposals, and other customer-facing selling documents across the UK and Ireland. You’ll be a member of a global team that supports Axon sales worldwide and will serve as the senior proposal execution lead for the region. You will own proposal development from early procurement engagement through submission and evaluation‑period follow‑up, translating established win strategy into a controlled response plan and ensuring the final submission is compliant, responsive, scorable, customer‑focused, and on time. Your strengths in judgment under ambiguity, cross‑functional leadership, technical and proposal writing, and compliance discipline will be central to success.

Focused primarily on UK and Ireland public‑sector opportunities, you will work closely with Sales, Bid Strategy, Solutions Engineering, Product, Legal, Security, Pricing, Finance, Services, and executive stakeholders. You will personally lead the hardest pursuits while also strengthening regional proposal readiness, reusable standards, coaching, and execution across bids owned by other Proposal Managers. This is an office‑based position in the United Kingdom.

What You’ll Do

• Location: hybrid schedule of Monday working remotely, and Tue‑Fri in our London office
• Reports to: Director, Global Proposals
• Direct Reports: N/A

At Axon, the Lead Proposal Manager is the senior owner of proposal execution for the region’s most complex pursuits. You will engage early in the procurement process, establish how the response will be run, make execution and compliance decisions within approved boundaries, and carry the proposal through submission and evaluation‑period deliverables. This is a comprehensive individual‑contributor role requiring expertise in the following areas:

• Proposal Planning & Execution: Translate established win strategy into an executable response architecture, including workstreams, assignments, proof collection, review cadence, decision gates, and submission‑readiness criteria. Build pre‑bid readiness for anticipated strategic procurements with Sales and Bid Strategy. Drive resolution of product exceptions, compliance issues, and proposal commitments through the appropriate approval paths, while partnering with Sales, Bid Strategy, Pricing, and leadership on commercial, account‑strategy, and bid decisions.
• Team Leadership: Lead large cross‑functional teams across Sales, Solutions Engineering, Product, Legal, Security, Pricing, Finance, Services, Proposal Team members, and executive stakeholders. Drive decisions, close gaps, enforce deadlines, adjudicate conflicting review input, and coach Proposal Managers and Specialists to improve execution judgment, compliance discipline, and independent ownership.
• Project & Compliance Management: Own proposal governance, milestones, compliance traceability, mandatory requirements, forms, schedules, portals, review cycles, final packaging, and submission readiness. Identify and manage disqualification and responsiveness risks, and preserve proposal context through structured handoff of assumptions, exceptions, commitments, and unresolved risks during clarification, presentation, and other evaluation‑period activity.
• Proposal Writing & Solution Fluency: Develop technical and solution fluency to challenge weak claims, identify risk, and frame partial or non‑compliant requirements carefully. Write, edit, and integrate high‑value content when SME inputs are incomplete, inconsistent, overly technical, or insufficiently responsive, producing a coherent response for technical and non‑technical evaluators.
• Regional Leadership & Stakeholder Collaboration: Build strong operating relationships with UK and Ireland Sales and technical leaders, monitor regional delivery health, identify where pursuits need additional support or escalation, and provide Proposal Leadership with recommendations on complex‑pursuit routing and resourcing. Identify repeatable success and failure patterns and improve regional execution through reusable standards, tools, proof sources, training, and workflow changes.

What You Bring

• Typically 8+ years of proposal, bid, tender, or comparable pursuit experience, including repeated end-to-end ownership of large, ambiguous, high‑stakes submissions with significant cross‑functional stakeholder load and formal review cycles.
• Strong UK public‑sector tender experience, including procurement routes, evaluation structures, frameworks and call‑offs, mandatory requirements, submission mechanics, and evaluator expectations.
• Experience with major policing, blue‑light/public safety, central government, defence/security, justice, or complex public‑sector technology procurements is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience leading responses with strict compliance, controlled submission, and potential disqualification or non‑responsive risk, with sound judgment about execution tradeoffs, prioritization of competing risks and deadlines, and when Product, Legal, Pricing, or strategy approval is required.
• Excellent proposal writing and editing skills, combined with the technical learning agility to challenge claims, identify solution risk, and turn uneven or highly technical inputs into clear, evaluator‑focused, defensible content.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority, handle constructive conflict, and escrow with clear options and a recommended path.
• Demonstrated ability to improve proposal execution beyond personally owned bids through standards, tools, processes, training, proof sources, or other reusable practices.
• Demonstrated ability to coach Proposal Managers or other proposal practitioners and improve their independent execution quality.
• Comfort with Microsoft 365 and SharePoint, Salesforce or comparable CRM, proposal‑management platforms such as QorusDocs, Responsive/RFPIO, or Qvidian, and AI‑enabled workflow tools. Formal proposal‑development training or exposure to Shipley, APMP, Sant, or equivalent is preferred; strong tool judgment and learning agility matter more than experience with any one platform.

Benefits that Benefit You

• Competitive compensation and UK retirement benefits
• Company bonus scheme
• 30 days paid time off
• Private medical insurance and health cash plan
• Paid parental leave
• Numerous insurance coverages (disability, long‑term sick etc.)
• Health and wellbeing benefits
• Office amenities…and many more.

Benefits and eligibility are governed by Axon's applicable UK plans and policies and may vary based on the nature of your employment and work location.

Don’t meet every single requirement? That's ok. At Axon, we Aim Far. We think big with a long‑term view because we want to reinvent the world to be a safer, better place. We are also committed to building diverse teams that reflect the communities we serve. Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they check every box in the job description. If you’re excited about this role and our mission to Protect Life but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed here, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

The above job description is not intended as, nor should it be construed as, exhaustive of all duties, responsibilities, skills, efforts, or working conditions associated with this job. The job description may change or be supplemented at any time in accordance with business needs and conditions.

Some roles may also require legal eligibility to work in a firearms environment. Axon’s mission is to Protect Life and is committed to the well‑being and safety of its employees as well as Axon’s impact on the environment. All Axon employees must be aware of and committed to the appropriate environmental, health, and safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Axon employees are empowered to report safety concerns as they arise and activities potentially impacting the environment.

We are an equal opportunity employer that promotes justice, advances equity, values diversity and fosters inclusion. We’re committed to hiring the best talent — regardless of race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances — and empowering all of our employees so they can do their best work. If you have a disability or special need that requires assistance or accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email recruitingops@axon.com. Please note that this email address is for accommodation purposes only. Axon will not respond to inquiries for other purposes.