When Should You Hire a GTM Engineer?

The Signal

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Hey y’all! 👋

As if navigating AI, shifting buyer behavior, and declining email open rates weren’t enough — now we’ve got tariffs as part of the equation. Never thought I’d need a supply chain analyst to help introduce new variables to lead scoring models.

Two things before we get into today’s juicy topic:

1. If you—or someone in your company—want to upskill as a GTM Engineer, I have a friend who is starting GTM Engineer School (I predict this is going to crush). Cohort 1 starts April 29th, and they’re only accepting 50 seats. They gave me a link where the first three people who sign up get $700 off (disclosure: I get a cut if you sign up).

   • My link to Apply

   • FAQs

2. If you are looking for a GTM Engineer job (or RevOps job), I’m helping a (different) friend with a couple of job placements, apply below (disclosure: I get a cut if you get hired through my link):

   • Descript - GTM Engineer

   • WorkOS - RevOps Systems & Tooling

Okay, let’s get into today’s post.

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When Should You Hire a GTM Engineer?

Let’s get this out of the way up front: I am not here to argue about the exact title of this new role. But, I do (very much so) believe this is a new role.

I explained the role and reasons it is new, in a post I published back in November: The Rise of the GTM Engineer (if you haven’t read that post, I’d read it first).

Here’s the tldr on why I believe is a new role:

1. The old playbook is broken—or, doesn’t work like it used to (~everyone agrees)

2. Everyone is looking for ways to scale GTM without adding headcount (for obvious reasons)

3. There are new tools at our disposal (including GenAI)

Today, I think a GTM Engineer is some combination of several roles (GTM generalist is a plus) — competitive and comp’d on very concrete things (eg: pipeline generated) like a seller; research and qualification-oriented like an SDR; good at messaging like an SDR or marketer; technically capable to use systems like a RevOps person; proficient with data like a Growth person.

One note, worth adding: the top companies in the world have “GTM Engineers” but don’t call them this (Ramp, Stripe, Figma, etc. have had these people for several years - and recently, have been equipped with better and better tooling). Sometimes they’re RevOps people, sometimes they’re Growth people. But, they have existed and are becoming increasingly valuable.

When should you hire a GTM Engineer?

I tried to do my best to distill my opinion into a single image. I’ll share some nuances below, but - this is my best attempt at it:

The simplest way to think of this: do you have a playbook that is working internally right now (even/especially if there are lots of manual steps) that is working successfully today? If yes, a GTM Engineer can help you scale that playbook.

Stage 1 → You don’t need a GTM Engineer Yet

• No PMF

• Founder sales

• Pre-revenue

• Seed funding

Stage 2 → You may need help from a GTM Engineer, but shouldn’t hire full-time yet

• Signs of PMF

• ~1-2 reps

• No dedicated RevOps

• ~Seed-Series A

Stage 3 → You may benefit from a GTM Engineer (depending on gtm motion), but likely shouldn’t hire full-time yet

• Early PMF

• ~2-10+ reps

• Early RevOps

• $1-10M revenue

• Series A+

Stage 4 → If your outsourced GTM Engineering experiments have worked, you should hire a GTM Engineer full-time

• PMF (scale mode)

• 10-100+ reps

• Dedicated RevOps

• $10M+ revenue

• Series C+ (growth stage)

Stage 5 → You should have a GTM Engineer/team full-time

• PMF

• 100+ reps

• Dedicated RevOps

• Dedicated Enablement

• Public company

One note: at the early and late stages, it could still make sense to have advisory help from a GTM Engineering perspective.

FAQs

1. What type of company should not hire a GTM Engineer?

   If you have a really small list of target accounts (eg: less than 1,000) and want to do super low-volume outreach, small in-person events, etc. to get in front of these folks.

2. What type of company should hire a GTM Engineer earlier?

   If you’re PLG (eg: lots of users, product usage data to wrangle+operationalize, etc.). Or if you’re super high-growth. Or if you have a really big TAM (eg: 50,000+ accounts).

3. When should you outsource GTM Engineer work?

   I think that leveraging someone (or an agency) to test this for a short period is a great way to see if this motion even makes sense for your business. I continue to see a growing desire to scale GTM with AI & automation instead of headcount. I’ve been doing this for some Series A-C clients and it seems to be working well for them! (In a couple of cases, my client has seen so much value that they decided to double down on the motion and we ran a search to help place a full-time GTME for them).

4. How much should you pay a GTM Engineer?

   Depends! But generally, $120-300K OTE. Personally, I think 25-50% of OTE can be in a variable plan (“show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome”).

I hope this is helpful.

And I would really love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this! Shoot me a DM on LinkedIn or reply to this email (I read all replies).

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As always, thank you for your attention and trust.

See you next week,
Brendan 🫡