Senior IT & Business Consultant

Apply Description Ares Enterprise is seeking a Senior IT & Business Consultant to support the full federal business development lifecycle—from opportunity identification and qualification through capture, solution development, proposal management, and transition to contract execution. This individual will serve as a trusted advisor and hands-on contributor, combining technical expertise, business judgment, and strong writing skills to help Ares pursue and win federal IT opportunities. The consultant will translate customer mission needs, acquisition requirements, and operational challenges into practical technical solutions, credible delivery approaches, and compelling proposals. This is a working consultant role, not solely an advisory or coordination position. The successful candidate must be comfortable analyzing requirements, developing solutions, writing proposal content, facilitating working sessions, and managing deliverables. The role requires close collaboration with company leadership, business development, technical teams, program managers, recruiting, pricing, and teaming partners. Key Responsibilities Business Development and Opportunity Qualification: Research and assess federal IT opportunities, customer missions, buying priorities, and competitive conditions. Analyze forecasts, requests for information, sources sought notices, and solicitations to determine strategic fit, capability alignment, resource needs, and pursuit risks. Develop opportunity assessments and recommendations that support informed bid/no-bid decisions. Capture Strategy and Teaming: Help develop capture plans, customer engagement strategies, competitive positioning, win themes, and differentiators. Identify gaps in capabilities, past performance, staffing, and contract access; recommend approaches to address them through internal resources or teaming. Support partner discussions, workshare planning, and preparation for customer and industry engagements. IT Solution Development: Translate performance work statements, statements of work, statements of objectives, and evaluation criteria into integrated technical and management approaches. Develop solution concepts, architectures, service delivery models, workflows, implementation roadmaps, and transition strategies. Work with technical specialists to evaluate feasibility, dependencies, security, scalability, staffing, cost, and delivery risk. Proposal Planning, Management, and Writing: Develop proposal schedules, compliance matrices, annotated outlines, content assignments, and review plans. Lead or support kickoff meetings, solution workshops, status reviews, and color-team reviews. Personally write and refine executive summaries, technical approaches, management and staffing plans, transition approaches, past performance narratives, and other response sections. Resolve review comments and help deliver complete, consistent, and compliant submissions. Staffing, Pricing, and Delivery Alignment: Collaborate with recruiting, program teams, and pricing personnel to develop labor mixes, staffing models, qualifications, levels of effort, and bases of estimate. Evaluate whether proposed resources and schedules support the solution and contractual requirements. Identify disconnects among the technical approach, staffing plan, price, and delivery assumptions before submission. Business Process Improvement and Knowledge Management: Improve repeatable processes for opportunity qualification, capture, solution development, proposal production, and contract handoff. Develop reusable templates, proposal content, capability summaries, and validated past performance proof points. Facilitate lessons learned and help transfer proposal commitments, assumptions, risks, and staffing plans to delivery teams following award. Government IT Practices and Technical Knowledge The consultant should understand how to apply recognized IT and business practices to federal customer requirements—not simply reference frameworks in proposal narratives. Relevant knowledge includes: Service Delivery and Quality: ITIL and IT service management; service-level management; incident, problem, change, configuration, and knowledge management; and principles associated with ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 20000-1, and ISO/IEC 27001. Program and Technology Delivery: PMI/PMBOK-aligned project management, Agile/Scrum, Waterfall, DevSecOps, enterprise architecture, requirements management, testing, risk management, and organizational change. Federal Security and Modernization: NIST-based cybersecurity practices, the Risk Management Framework and authorization processes, Zero Trust, CMMC concepts where relevant, accessibility, cloud adoption, and secure integration of enterprise systems. Technical depth in one or more of Ares’ core capability areas is important, along with the ability to work across disciplines and integrate specialist input into a coherent solution. Candidates are not expected to be experts in every technology or framework listed. Requirements Required Qualifications Substantial experience supporting federal government IT programs, with demonstrated contributions to business development, capture, solution development, and proposal delivery. Ability to analyze complex solicitations and distinguish submission instructions, evaluation criteria, performance requirements, assumptions, and unresolved questions. Familiarity with federal acquisition terminology, common contract vehicles, and prime contractor/subcontractor relationships. Strong technical and business analysis skills, including the ability to connect customer objectives to solution features, staffing requirements, implementation activities, measurable outcomes, and cost considerations. Excellent writing, editing, presentation, and facilitation skills. Ability to produce evaluator-focused content that explains what will be done, how it will be accomplished, who will perform it, and why the approach benefits the customer. Demonstrated ability to manage competing deadlines, coordinate multidisciplinary contributors, work independently, and maintain accuracy and version control. Proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and collaborative document-management tools. Preferred Qualifications Experience working with a small or growing federal IT systems integrator, where responsibilities span strategy, technical development, writing, and execution. Experience supporting Department of Defense or federal civilian IT opportunities; developing staffing models and bases of estimate; and participating in customer presentations, oral proposals, or technical demonstrations. Relevant education or equivalent professional experience in information technology, computer science, engineering, business, or a related field. Certifications such as APMP, PMP, ITIL, or relevant cloud, cybersecurity, architecture, or platform credentials are beneficial.