Jr. Pricing Analyst at Manhattan Strategy Group in Location not listed

DESCRIPTION The Junior Pricing Analyst will support the development of accurate, compliant, and competitive cost and price proposals for federal government opportunities. The successful candidate will use advanced Microsoft Excel skills and approved AI-enabled tools to review solicitation requirements, develop and maintain pricing models, calculate labor and non-labor costs, validate proposal data, prepare cost-volume documentation, and support pricing reviews. AI tools may be used to accelerate research, summarization, drafting, formula development, comparison, and quality-control activities; however, all outputs must be independently verified against source documents and approved pricing assumptions. This position is appropriate for an early-career professional with strong quantitative skills, exceptional attention to detail, sound judgment when using emerging technologies, and an interest in developing expertise in federal government contract pricing. ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: SOLICITATION AND PRICING REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS • Review requests for proposals, requests for quotations, task-order requests, amendments, statements of work, and related solicitation documents. • Identify pricing instructions, required formats, deadlines, contract types, periods of performance, labor categories, contract line-item numbers, and evaluation requirements. • Review government-provided pricing workbooks, schedules, templates, and attachments. • Assist with identifying missing information, unclear instructions, conflicting requirements, mathematical inconsistencies, and potential compliance issues. • Use approved AI tools, when appropriate, to support initial solicitation summaries, amendment comparisons, compliance checklists, and question development; verify all outputs against the complete source documents. • Track solicitation amendments and maintain pricing compliance checklists, assumptions, outstanding questions, and action items. EXCEL-BASED PRICING MODEL DEVELOPMENT • Develop, populate, maintain, and update Excel-based cost and pricing models under the direction of senior pricing personnel. • Calculate labor hours, full-time-equivalent staffing, direct labor rates, escalation, indirect costs, subcontractor costs, travel, other direct costs, fee, discounts, and total proposed price. • Convert staffing plans, levels of effort, work breakdown structures, and technical assumptions into labor-hour and labor-cost estimates. • Prepare base-period, option-period, annual, task-level, and total contract pricing. • Develop scenario analyses to evaluate alternative staffing levels, labor mixes, rates, escalation, indirect costs, fee, and discounts. • Use approved AI capabilities to assist with formula development, formula explanation, model documentation, data classification, and error troubleshooting while independently testing and validating every calculation. • Reconcile internal pricing models with government pricing forms and proposal submission templates. • Identify and correct broken formulas, inconsistent links, accidental overrides, and other workbook errors. COST PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND QUALITY CONTROL • Assist with preparing cost and price proposal volumes, pricing narratives, assumptions, tables, schedules, and supporting documentation. • Draft descriptions of labor-rate development, escalation, indirect rates, fee, subcontractor costs, travel, and other pricing elements using approved language. • Use approved AI tools to support first drafts, document comparisons, consistency checks, and identification of potential omissions, while ensuring that final content is accurate, supportable, and written in MSG’s approved voice. • Reconcile totals among pricing models, government forms, proposal tables, cost narratives, and management summaries. • Conduct formula reviews, cross-footing, reasonableness testing, and vertical and horizontal checks. • Verify that costs roll up correctly by employee, labor category, task, contract period, contract line item, and cost element. • Check for omitted or duplicate costs, incorrect periods, inconsistent rounding, broken links, unsupported assumptions, formula overrides, and unreliable AI-generated statements. • Participate in independent peer reviews and document discrepancies requiring correction. PRICING COORDINATION, DOCUMENTATION, AI GOVERNANCE, AND PROCESS IMPROVEMENT • Coordinate with proposal, capture, contracts, finance, accounting, human resources, recruiting, operations, project management, technical personnel, subcontractors, and consultants to obtain pricing inputs. • Participate in proposal kickoff meetings, pricing working sessions, status meetings, and management reviews. • Track pricing assignments, deadlines, data requests, assumptions, issues, and revisions. • Maintain organized pricing files, workpapers, supporting documentation, revision histories, prompt libraries, and records of significant AI-assisted analyses when required. • Communicate outstanding needs, questions, changes, and risks clearly and promptly. • Assist with customer clarifications, revised proposals, best-and-final offers, audits, fact-finding, and negotiation support. • Use only MSG-approved AI platforms and follow company requirements for privacy, cybersecurity, records management, intellectual property, and human review. • Do not enter proprietary, employee compensation, procurement-sensitive, customer-controlled, export-controlled, or other confidential information into unapproved public AI tools. • Support the transition of awarded pricing information to contracts, finance, accounting, and project-management teams. • Recommend improvements to pricing templates, Excel tools, AI-assisted workflows, checklists, trackers, and standard operating procedures. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS: • Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, economics, business administration, mathematics, statistics, data analytics, or a related discipline. Relevant education, internships, military service, proposal experience, financial-analysis experience, or government-contracting experience may be considered in place of a directly related degree. • Two to five years of relevant professional experience. • Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel. • Working knowledge of generative AI and AI-enabled productivity tools, including the ability to create clear prompts, assess output quality, identify potential hallucinations or unsupported statements, and verify results against authoritative sources. • Strong mathematical, analytical, and problem-solving skills. • Exceptional attention to detail and commitment to accuracy. • Ability to organize, compare, and reconcile information from multiple sources. • Ability to manage multiple assignments and deadlines. • Strong written and verbal communication skills. • Ability to work independently after receiving direction and recognize when guidance is required. • Ability to handle confidential, proprietary, compensation, procurement-sensitive, and customer-controlled information. • Willingness to learn federal proposal pricing, government-contracting practices, and MSG’s responsible AI policies and approved use cases. REQUIRED EXCEL AND AI CAPABILITIES: CANDIDATES SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE PROFICIENCY WITH: • Multi-worksheet workbooks; • Mathematical and conditional formulas; • Absolute, relative, and mixed cell references; • SUMIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIF, COUNTIFS, IF, IFERROR, XLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, INDEX, and MATCH; • PivotTables; • Sorting, filtering, conditional formatting, and data validation; • Formula tracing and error identification; • Reconciling information among worksheets and workbooks; • Creating clear, transparent, and reviewable financial calculations; • Writing effective prompts for summarization, comparison, drafting, formula assistance, and structured data extraction; • Reviewing AI outputs for accuracy, completeness, bias, confidentiality concerns, and alignment with source documents; • Documenting assumptions and maintaining traceability among source information, analyst judgment, and AI-assisted work. • Using AI as an analytical aid while retaining human accountability for all pricing conclusions and deliverables. Power Query, Power Pivot, VBA, AI-enabled Excel features, and other automation experience are beneficial but not required. AI experience must be demonstrated in a manner consistent with MSG’s approved technology, information-security, and confidentiality requirements.  PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: • Experience supporting pricing, proposals, finance, accounting, budgeting, contracts, project control, or data analysis. • Experience with a federal government contractor, consulting firm, professional-services organization, nonprofit organization, or government agency. • Familiarity with federal proposals, cost volumes, labor categories, indirect rates, escalation, fee calculations, or subcontractor pricing. • Familiarity with Firm-Fixed-Price, Time-and-Materials, Labor-Hour, Cost-Reimbursement, IDIQ, BPA, or task-order contracts. • Experience with Unanet, Deltek, ProPricer, Power BI, Power Query, SharePoint, Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT Enterprise, Gemini Enterprise, Claude Enterprise, or comparable approved enterprise tools. • Experience developing reusable prompts, AI-assisted checklists, structured summaries, or other controlled workflows for financial, proposal, or analytical work. Manhattan Strategy Group (MSG) is an Equal Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Our hiring decisions are based solely on merit and qualifications, ensuring a fair and competitive selection process.