Suddenly, lots of people are talking about the rise of the go-to-market (GTM) engineer: semi-technical polymaths who can master APIs, stitch together data flows, harness automations, and singlehandedly connect your go-to-market dots.
You’ve probably seen examples of this new discipline on social media, usually with a sped-up screen recording of how someone clicked through a bunch of apps and connected data sources and AI agents to identify market segments and push out content at scale.
If that seems like robotic middleman work … you’re not wrong.
Those multi-step, hacked-together workflows are really a software problem being solved by people. And if your go-to-market motion requires a GTM engineer just to function, your system is probably broken.
What’s a GTM Engineer, Anyway?
A GTM engineer (or go-to-market engineer) is a hybrid technical and business role that designs, builds, and scales systems to drive sales, marketing, and revenue operations. They’re typically tasked with stitching together systems that perform discrete GTM jobs, but don’t natively connect with each other.
That’s because GTM engineers are a byproduct of the scattered tools, siloed data, and fragmented workflows that plague too many GTM teams.
GTM engineers quickly became a stopgap when CRM data wasn’t syncing, when marketing engagement signals were locked in a separate platform, when campaign execution depended on someone fluent in SQL or Python.
So instead of fixing the system, we got a person to manage the dysfunction. But that’s a patchwork being branded as progress. And if history teaches us anything, it’s that mechanical jobs will be replaced with technology.
The Real Fix: Replace Complexity With Intelligence
Sales and operations leaders shouldn’t need another layer of specialists to get their most creative revenue ideas into the field. They should have access to software and data that allows them to build, orchestrate and activate audiences with their frontline sales and marketing teams.
Luckily, companies are starting to invest significant resources into solving this problem for good.
ZoomInfo’s GTM Studio is built on that premise. It’s a unified workspace for revenue leaders and operators to build, execute, and optimize go-to-market strategies, without needing a specially trained staffer to make their creative ideas reality.
GTM Studio combines first- and third-party data, high-velocity buying signals, AI-powered orchestration, and campaign tools in a single UI. Instead of dragging your best ideas through IT bottlenecks or a GTM engineer’s backlog of work requests, GTM Studio lets you act on them instantly.
And because GTM Studio is built natively on ZoomInfo’s GTM Intelligence Platform, it can combine call data from Chorus, CRM attribution from SetSail, and data hygiene from RingLead, all in one experience.
GTM Engineers Were a Workaround, not a Solution
In another era, these specialist roles would probably become a solid career path for 10 years or more. But AI has also made software development and deployment so much faster that the lifecycle of human workarounds is going to be much shorter than usual.
Think drag-and-drop workflows instead of Python scripts. Think AI-generated audience lists instead of manual data pulls. And most of all, think faster targeting, smoother expansion, and higher win rates — without waiting on technical support.
That should be why software exists: to free humans from drudgery and unlock their creative potential, not make them work for the tools.
The Future of Revenue Execution is in Your Hands
If your current stack still requires a GTM engineer to function, it’s time to stop patching. The future belongs to revenue teams that can act on insights in real time, without asking for permission or waiting in line.
The real future of GTM will be defined by software that does more than any GTM engineer could lash together on their own:
- Centralize all your GTM data and intelligence
- Streamline execution across sales, marketing, and RevOps
- Eliminate delays, duplications, and technical gatekeepers
- Reduce the gap between ideas and execution
Explore GTM Studio today and see how your next campaign could go from inspiration to action in minutes, not months.
