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I thought GTM engineering would be the hottest job of 2025.
The role has certainly entered the chat. There are detailed think-pieces about it. Communities for GTM engineers. Courses dedicated to it. And companies like OpenAI, Ramp and Webflow that are sprinting to hire for it.
GTM engineers – sometimes called GTM Ops, Growth Ops, AI Ops, RevOps Engineers, GTM Ops Engineers, or even Lead to Opportunity Systems Engineers – are meant to bring technology and automation to solve hard GTM problems (of which there are many!). I think of GTM engineers as people who can both identify friction points across the buying journey (ICP targeting, ICP pipeline, conversion, CAC, etc.) and then quickly run automated, 1:many experiments to eliminate them.
It’s essentially a growth hire, but focused on a primarily sales-led or sales-assisted funnel rather than a product-led one. It’s similar to Ops, but often meant to have an incentive structure tied to results. And it seems to particularly resonate in lower-ACV, lower-touch GTM motions where there’s a need for more programmatic, 1:many GTM plays.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t met many actual GTM engineers yet. Despite the buzz, there really aren’t a lot of software companies hiring for GTM engineers, either.
I found just 45 GTM engineer job posts from the past month and 128 from the past three months. To be fair, this is up from fewer than 10 job posts per month in 2024. But I bet there were more LinkedIn posts last month about GTM engineering than actual companies hiring for it. (The data comes from Sumble, which aggregates and analyzes job posts for better account intelligence.)
Looking at June through August 2025, the stats are telling. There’s one GTM engineering job post for every 5 RevTech/MarTech job posts. One for every 14 in RevOps. One for every 35 in SalesOps. And – even more surprisingly – there’s only one GTM engineering job post for every 92 SDRs!
What’s more, the role’s popularity is a far cry from other AI-native jobs like AI engineers, prompt engineers or automation engineers. It barely registers in Google Trends.
So what gives: is GTM engineering online hype or is it still the next hot job? Here’s what I’m seeing.
👋 Hi, it’s Kyle Poyar and welcome to Growth Unhinged, my weekly newsletter exploring the hidden playbooks behind the fastest-growing startups.
1. Companies want to outsource GTM engineering before bringing it in-house.
In talking to founders and GTM leaders, there is real curiosity about GTM engineering. Folks would love to find way to automate GTM plays or unearth creative intent signals for more precise targeting.
But people are hesitant to commit to a full-time hire for something that’s untested and with unknown ROI. They don’t know whether GTM engineering will work for them, how to hire a GTM engineer, what to look for in a candidate, or where this function fits in the organization.
The path of least resistance: outsource to an agency. It’s estimated that 45% of those with a GTM engineer title are actually agencies or consultants. There are more than 120 agencies in Clay’s Solutions Partner directory alone. That’s three agencies for every new GTM engineering job opening from the past month. And there are likely countless more agencies or consultants who specialize in GTM engineering, but aren’t explicitly in Clay’s partner directory.
A small word of caution. There’s a wide range of agencies in terms of quality, speed, and cost-efficiency. Don’t skip the agency vetting process.
2. It’s extremely hard to hire a top 1% GTM engineer.
The GTM engineering job title only started being popularized about 18 months ago. It’s almost impossible to poach a great GTM engineer from another company.
This means hiring managers need to get creative with sourcing candidates with the right skills and experiences, even if they haven’t been called a GTM engineer. So what are those skills?
Candidates are expected to be a Frankenstein blend of systems thinkers, GTM technology and automation nerds, savvy marketers, data-driven problem solvers, and persuasive communicators. You can see for yourself, take a look at the key responsibilities and required skills for the role.
These skills don’t neatly map to existing roles outside of perhaps RevOps or RevTech. In my experience, hiring managers end up seeking out former founders given the unique blend of technical skills, GTM acumen, and comfort with solving ambiguous problems. And hiring former founders certainly isn’t easy; unless, perhaps, your company is called OpenAI.
Many Seed to Series B startups find it’s better to start by moving someone over internally who has the business context paired with enough system knowledge. These folks might be in product, growth, ops, or even a chief of staff. (They might also start off by managing an external agency.)
3. AI and automation skills are being required across GTM roles.
Another option question: do we need dedicated GTM engineers or should AI and automation skills be accessible across the GTM org?
The current bet seems to be AI reskilling and hiring AI-native go-to-market talent. Tech GTM job posts requiring AI skills are up by 14x in the last two years. Powerful AI capabilities are requiring less and less coding or special skills. Non-engineers can now vibecode complex software projects; why should we need software engineers to run data-driven GTM plays?
As tools become more accessible, it might be more efficient and more powerful to equip existing team members to do GTM engineering work rather than hope for a unicorn-hire to drive changes single-handedly. Keep in mind that there would likely still be a need for someone to own things like overall RevTech systems setup, management, and architecture.
Within GTM engineering, in the past month there have been more than 10 job posts that mention familiarity with Clay for every one GTM engineer job post that mentions Clay. (As Clay has popularized the term GTM engineering, more than half of all GTM engineering roles mention Clay.)
4. GTM engineering should ultimately merge with RevOps and/or RevTech.
To have lasting impact, GTM engineering plays need to fit into the bigger picture. They need the right context including (a) the most important priorities for the GTM org, (b) the existing tech stack and how tools work together, and (c) how to drive cross-functional initiatives.
Zooming out, there are two existing roles that already own this bigger picture. And both increasingly call for a combination of AI and automation skills, cross-functional problem solving, and experience with next-gen tools like Clay. They’re called RevOps and RevTech.
The major difference between GTM engineering and RevOps/RevTech seems to be the expectation of owning the metrics tied to automated GTM plays — and being compensated accordingly. These metrics might be tied to automated outbound, lead nurture, personalized landing pages for ABM or other initiatives. And it’s a tall order for RevOps/RevTech to own both systems and outcomes.
I can see things evolving in two directions. Either there’s a convergence between RevOps and GTM engineering under one umbrella, which ultimately elevates the role of RevOps. Or RevOps becomes the systems partner to the teams who already own the number, namely marketing and SDR/BDR leaders.
Frankly, the best RevOps teams have always been acting like GTM engineers. But they certainly haven’t had the spotlight. And they usually haven’t had enough staffing or resources to unlock the full impact.
What comes next
GTM engineering isn’t the hottest job of 2025. It’s still (very) early and movements like this take time to play out.
But the conversation about GTM engineering does show us where GTM is headed. GTM in 2025 requires great data, an interest in automating where possible, attention to next-gen tooling, and faster iteration cycles.
Before hiring a GTM engineer, I’d suggest you:
Start with an agency or consultant to prove value with a specific use case.
Redeploy someone internally who has the business context paired with the system knowledge.
Upskill the existing GTM team and equip them with next-gen tooling.
Hire a great Head of RevOps (or RevTech) and fully resource their team.
Special thank you to Austin Hay from Clarify, Brendan Short from The Signal, and Noah Adelstein from the gtm engineer for their feedback on this piece.
Feels like GTM engineering is heavily focused on mostly outbound but do you see any implications for more inbound engines?