# Who are GTM engineers, and where do they come from?

Mostly go-to-market people who learned to build, not software engineers. The title grew 6.5x, from 121 holders at the end of 2023 to 791 in March 2026, and 7.7% came from software or data engineering.

By Cristian Frunze, Founder of Ken · Oct 10, 2026 · [Ken Research](/research) No. 6 · Sales teams, Hiring and org design

## Key findings

- **6.5x** growth in people holding a GTM engineer title, from 121 at the end of 2023 to 791 in March 2026, while sales and marketing headcount stayed flat.
- **7.7%** of new GTM engineers came straight from software or data engineering. Sales roles, marketing, ops and founder jobs each supplied more.
- **19.3%** of GTM engineers list Clay on their profile, against 0.2% of RevOps people. 26.6% mention AI tools, against 3.0% of SDRs.
- **67.8%** work at companies with 200 or fewer employees, against 39.2% of people hired as SDRs since 2024. Only 9.7% work at companies over 1,000.

The number of people holding a GTM engineer title grew **6.5 times** in just over two years: 121 people held one at the end of 2023, and 791 did in March 2026. Seven in ten people who have ever held the title (714 of 1,028) started it in 2025 or later. The sales and marketing workforce around them barely moved, so this is real growth, not more profiles.

A GTM (go-to-market) engineer builds the systems a sales and marketing team runs on: enriched lead lists, automated outbound, CRM workflows and the scripts that join the tools together. Many B2B teams are hiring for the role, and few have defined it with data. We looked at the work histories of everyone in Ken internal data who holds or has held the title, in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

**Figure 1. GTM engineers grew 6.5x after 2023 and passed growth engineers in 2025**

People holding a GTM engineer title, and the older growth engineer title, at each quarter end. Before mid-2022 fewer than 50 people held a GTM engineer title, so earlier quarters are not shown. March 2026 may still be missing late profile updates.

| Quarter end | GTM engineer | Growth engineer |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2022 Q2 | 52 | 246 |
| 2022 Q3 | 56 | 241 |
| 2022 Q4 | 58 | 235 |
| 2023 Q1 | 78 | 243 |
| 2023 Q2 | 89 | 245 |
| 2023 Q3 | 105 | 242 |
| 2023 Q4 | 121 | 240 |
| 2024 Q1 | 152 | 233 |
| 2024 Q2 | 166 | 248 |
| 2024 Q3 | 213 | 263 |
| 2024 Q4 | 250 | 269 |
| 2025 Q1 | 324 | 290 |
| 2025 Q2 | 412 | 342 |
| 2025 Q3 | 542 | 370 |
| 2025 Q4 | 636 | 376 |
| 2026 Q1 | 791 | 392 |

*Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.*

## From a niche title to 791 people

The title existed before 2024, but barely: it first passed 50 people in mid-2022. It doubled during 2024, from 121 to 250 people, then grew 2.54 times during 2025, to 636. In the first three months of 2026 alone, 196 people started their first GTM engineer job.

It is still a rare title: about 0.95 for every 10,000 people in sales and marketing jobs, up from 0.15 at the end of 2023. That workforce went from 8,204,748 to 8,306,164 people over the same period, so the share grew 6.5 times too.

"Growth engineer" makes a useful contrast. It is an older product-engineering title, for engineers who run in-app growth experiments, and it comes from the same profiles. It grew 1.63 times over the same period, from 240 to 392 people, and GTM engineer overtook it in early 2025.

We counted titles built on "GTM engineer" or "go-to-market engineer", with seniority and modifier forms such as "Senior GTM Engineer", "Head of GTM Engineering" and "GTM Systems Engineer". Adding revenue and RevOps engineer titles takes March 2026 from 791 to 868 people. Recruiters who hire GTM engineers and two unrelated "GTM"s, Oracle's Global Trade Management and F5's Global Traffic Manager, were removed before counting.

## Most came from go-to-market jobs, not engineering

There is no single feeder job. For the 999 people with an earlier job, we looked at the one held just before their first GTM engineer title.

**Figure 2. Most came from go-to-market jobs, not engineering**

Job held just before the first GTM engineer title, for the 999 people with an earlier job. Go-to-market jobs are in purple. Software and data engineers, 7.7% of the total, are part of engineering, data and product.

|   | Share of new GTM engineers |
| --- | --- |
| GTM sales roles | 19.8% |
| Marketing | 14.2% |
| Engineering, data, product | 11.0% |
| Founders, consultants | 9.9% |
| RevOps, sales and marketing ops | 9.6% |
| Other GTM roles | 6.1% |
| Other jobs | 29.3% |

*Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.*

GTM sales roles (SDRs, account executives, account managers, customer success and presales) supplied the most, 19.8%, then marketing at 14.2%. Engineering, data and product supplied 11.0%, and software and data engineers alone **7.7%** (77 people). The remaining 29.3% came from a long tail of other jobs.

So the role is filled mostly by go-to-market people who learned to build, not by software engineers who moved into sales. 14.9% (149 of 999) took the job inside the company where they already worked, and 94 of 1,028 first held the title as a founder, freelancer, fractional hire or agency owner.

## What is on their profiles

We compared the 792 current GTM engineers with people who started an SDR or RevOps job in the same years: 60,823 SDRs and 51,490 RevOps people. For each group, we counted how many profiles mention a tool.

**Figure 3. Clay, code and AI set GTM engineers apart from RevOps**

Share of profiles that mention each tool in their skills or headline: 792 current GTM engineers and 51,490 people who started a RevOps job in 2024 or later. Fewer than 50 of 60,823 comparable SDRs mention Clay.

|   | GTM engineers | RevOps |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Clay | 19.3% | 0.2% |
| AI and LLM tools | 26.6% | 2.5% |
| SQL | 24.2% | 10.5% |
| Salesforce | 23.5% | 27.4% |
| Python | 18.9% | 4.3% |
| HubSpot | 18.4% | 5.4% |
| APIs and webhooks | 14.4% | 1.9% |

*Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.*

- **Clay**, the data-enrichment and automation tool, is on 19.3% of GTM engineer profiles. It is on 0.2% of RevOps profiles and on fewer than 50 of the 60,823 SDR profiles.
- **Code:** Python is on 18.9% of GTM engineer profiles against 4.3% of RevOps, SQL on 24.2% against 10.5%, and APIs and webhooks on 14.4% against 1.9%.
- **AI:** 26.6% of GTM engineers mention AI or LLM tools such as ChatGPT, OpenAI or Claude, against 3.0% of SDRs and 2.5% of RevOps.
- **CRM:** Salesforce is close to the RevOps rate (23.5% against 27.4%). HubSpot is far more common (18.4% against 5.4%), which fits the smaller companies that hire GTM engineers.

The sales-engagement tools SDRs list, such as Apollo, Outreach, Salesloft and ZoomInfo, are each on fewer than 50 GTM engineer profiles. The role looks more like a technical RevOps person than a seller. GTM engineer profiles carry more skill keywords overall, but neutral ones such as management and communication sit near the RevOps rate, so the tool gaps are not a profile-length effect.

## Small, young, venture-backed employers

Among current GTM engineers whose employer we could match, compared with people hired as SDRs from January 2024 to March 2026:

**Figure 4. GTM engineers work at smaller, younger companies than new SDRs**

Share of current GTM engineers (March 2026) and of people hired as SDRs from January 2024 to March 2026, by their employer's company record. Each share uses the people whose employer record has that field, such as 566 GTM engineers for size.

|   | GTM engineers | SDR hires |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 or fewer employees | 67.8% | 39.2% |
| Over 1,000 employees | 9.7% | 35.9% |
| Software and IT | 67.7% | 53.2% |
| Venture round on record | 37.3% | 24.3% |
| Founded 2015 or later | 75.6% | 36.1% |

*Source: Ken internal data (company and career records Ken uses for sales and outreach), analysed by Cristian Frunze.*

67.8% work at companies with 200 or fewer employees, against 39.2% of SDR hires, and only 9.7% at companies with more than 1,000 employees, against 35.9%. The median employer is 7 years old, against 15 for SDR hires.

## What we expected

We wrote down four predictions before pulling any data.

- **At least tenfold growth.** Partly right: 6.5x, between the tenfold we expected and the fivefold line we set for being wrong. Most holders did start in 2025 or later.
- **Mostly from ops and sales roles, under 20% from engineering.** Half right. Software and data engineering was 7.7%. But ops, SDR/BDR and other sales roles together supplied 24.0%, not more than half.
- **Clay at least 5 times as common as among SDRs and RevOps, code at least 3 times the RevOps rate, CRM about the same.** Mostly right. Clay is 114.3 times the RevOps rate. Python (4.4x) and APIs (7.7x) cleared 3x, SQL (2.3x) did not. Salesforce matched (0.9x), HubSpot did not (3.4x).
- **Small, venture-backed software companies hire most of them.** Right on size, industry and venture funding.

## What this data cannot show

- **Titles, not tasks.** Some RevOps and growth people do GTM engineering under another title and are not counted.
- **Late updates.** People add new jobs months late, so March 2026 may undercount and the 6.5x is likely a lower bound.
- **Retitling.** Someone may have relabelled an earlier job after the term caught on. We cannot see when a title was written.
- **Coverage.** The data covers six English-speaking countries and profiles that exist today, and only 566 of the 791 current GTM engineers have a matched company record with a size.
- **Description, not cause.** These are patterns in public profiles, not proof of what causes what.

## What it means for B2B teams

- **The pool is thin.** With about one GTM engineer per 10,000 sales and marketing workers, most teams will not find experienced ones to hire. Plan to grow them.
- **Look inside go-to-market first.** Only 7.7% came from software or data engineering. Sales reps, marketers, ops people and founders who already automate their own work are the likeliest candidates, and 14.9% made the move inside their own company.
- **Screen for the stack, not the title.** Clay, Python, SQL, APIs and AI tools on top of a CRM are what set the role apart.
- **Large companies are early.** Only 9.7% of GTM engineers work at companies over 1,000 employees, against 35.9% of new SDRs.

## Data and method

- **Data:** Ken internal data: the public professional profiles, work histories, skill keywords and company records Ken uses for sales and outreach, reused by Cristian Frunze for this study. Six countries: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.
- **Sample:** 1,028 people who have held a GTM engineer title (791 in March 2026), compared with 60,823 SDRs, 51,490 RevOps people and the 8,306,164 people in sales and marketing jobs in March 2026.
- **Date range:** Quarter ends from 2019 Q1 to 2026 Q1, from profiles updated up to April 2026. Growth measured from the end of 2023.
- **Method:** Pre-registered. Title rules with a manual audit of 200 titles per tier, quarterly headcount from job start and end dates, previous-role analysis, and tool mentions compared across groups. Headline numbers recomputed by an independent analysis.
- **Excluded:** Recruiters hiring for the role, Oracle and F5 "GTM" product titles, and unrelated revenue or growth engineers; Presales engineers, and titles such as "Software Engineer, GTM"; Jobs with no start date; Any group under 50 people.
- **Privacy:** Aggregates only. Any group smaller than 50 people is suppressed, and no individual is named.

[Full methodology as Markdown](/research/rise-of-the-gtm-engineer/methodology.md) · [Download the full methodology (PDF)](/research/rise-of-the-gtm-engineer.pdf)

## Related studies.

- No. 1: [Did AI kill the SDR role?](/research/did-ai-kill-the-sdr-role.md) - Sep 30, 2026 · AI and work, Sales teams. 6.7% of software sales teams were SDRs in March 2026. Not in headcount. SDRs were 6.7% of software sales teams in March 2026, against 6.8% a month after ChatGPT launched. Full methodology: [Markdown](/research/did-ai-kill-the-sdr-role/methodology.md) · [PDF](/research/did-ai-kill-the-sdr-role.pdf).
- No. 11: [How many reps does a sales manager have now?](/research/sales-manager-span-of-control.md) - Oct 20, 2026 · Sales teams, Hiring and org design. 4.99 sales reps per manager title in software and IT, 2026. About five. Software and IT sales teams had 4.99 reps per manager title in early 2026, up from 4.16 at the end of 2016. The 2023 cuts nudged that up 2.8% rather than resetting it. Full methodology: [Markdown](/research/sales-manager-span-of-control/methodology.md) · [PDF](/research/sales-manager-span-of-control.pdf).
- No. 10: [Where does Series A money go? As much to selling as to building](/research/series-a-hiring.md) - Oct 18, 2026 · Founders and startups, Hiring and org design, Sales teams. 26.9% of Series A net adds go to selling, level with building. Into more people, split evenly. In the year after a Series A, software companies put 27.0% of net adds into building and 26.9% into selling, and added 13.4 people each, against 7.5 the year before. Full methodology: [Markdown](/research/series-a-hiring/methodology.md) · [PDF](/research/series-a-hiring.pdf).

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