Just two years ago, the title “GTM engineer” was largely absent from tech companies. Today, the role is appearing across the industry as businesses use AI and automation to build revenue systems that once required several people, software tools and extensive manual work.
The shift is changing how companies approach sales, marketing and customer acquisition—and redefining who is responsible for building the systems that support growth.
At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, Clay co-founder and CEO Kareem Amin will explore that transformation during a session titled “The GTM Engineer: How AI Created Tech’s Next Big Job Category.” The session will examine how AI is reshaping traditional go-to-market operations and what an AI-native approach looks like in practice.
What does a GTM engineer do?
Traditional go-to-market teams can spend significant amounts of time researching potential customers, cleaning and enriching data, qualifying leads, personalizing messages and transferring information between multiple systems.
GTM engineering aims to turn much of that work into automated, repeatable workflows.
Clay, which coined the term in 2023, describes GTM engineers as practitioners who build automated revenue systems rather than manually carrying out individual sales and marketing tasks. The company says around 100 GTM engineering positions are now being posted each month, with companies including Cursor, Lovable and Webflow among those hiring for the role.
AI has helped accelerate the shift by bringing prospect research, data analysis, personalization and workflow automation into increasingly connected systems.
For companies deciding whether to expand their teams or invest in automation, the emerging role raises a broader question: should businesses continue adding people to existing processes, or build systems that allow existing teams to operate differently?
Clay’s role in the shift
Clay began in Brooklyn in 2017 with a focus on making programming capabilities more accessible. Its original spreadsheet-style product allowed users to connect information and automate tasks without having to write code.
As sales teams, growth professionals and agencies began using the platform to identify and reach potential customers, Clay increasingly focused on go-to-market operations.
The company now provides tools for GTM teams to access data, build agentic workflows and launch campaigns. Its OpenAI-powered agent, Claygent, can automate research and outreach across sales, marketing and recruiting.
The business has also expanded rapidly. TechCrunch reported in February that Clay had tripled its annual recurring revenue to $100 million in one year and announced an employee tender offer at a $5 billion valuation. In September, Clay announced a $115 million Series D that valued the company at $7.1 billion.
Clay is also investing in the emerging profession itself. In September, the company announced a $1 million scholarship fund designed to help train GTM engineers.
From product leadership to GTM engineering
Amin co-founded Clay in 2017 and serves as its CEO. Before launching the company, he was vice president of product at The Wall Street Journal and co-founded collaboration startup Frame, which was acquired by Sailthru in 2012.
Clay was initially built around the idea that more people should be able to use programming as part of their work. The rise of AI has expanded that concept into a new area, allowing GTM teams to create automated systems for research, data enrichment and outreach without requiring traditional engineering resources for every workflow.
That combination of programming concepts, data and AI is at the center of the GTM engineer role.
What the role could mean for growth teams
The emergence of GTM engineering does not eliminate the underlying challenge companies have always faced: finding the right customers and reaching them efficiently.
What is changing is the infrastructure used to solve that problem.
Instead of relying on separate teams and tools for prospect research, data enrichment, outreach and campaign execution, AI-native GTM systems can connect more of those processes into a single workflow.
That could make GTM engineers an increasingly important part of how technology companies build and scale their revenue operations.
Amin will discuss the evolution of the role at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, taking place October 13–15 at Moscone West in San Francisco. The event is expected to bring together more than 10,000 founders, investors, operators and technology leaders, with more than 250 speakers and 300 exhibiting startups.
