Blog/GTM hiring
How to (not) hire a GTM engineer
/Benyamin Holley/LinkedIn/Head of GTM
Fig. 01
The post
A PMM in r/gtmengineering, about to interview a GTM engineer for the first time. reddit.com/r/gtmengineering
A GTM engineer should be hired by a RevOps, marketing, or sales leader, not a PMM, and not HR. The interview should test whether they can connect technical work to revenue, and whether they know when to kill a workflow that took too long to build.
What is a GTM engineer?
A GTM engineer is an engineering resource embedded inside sales and marketing. They build internal systems for the revenue org: outreach infrastructure, experimentation, and the workflows that sit between a list and a closed deal.
A lot of people picked up the title as the cold email craze died down and the skillset expanded past spamming a million people. That's a good thing. More people approaching sales and marketing problems from a technical lens is good for the discipline. Deliverability, DNS, inbox rotation, and the automation around those functions are still core, not optional extras.
They should also be a resource for other teams: helping with messaging, and building experimentation frameworks around positioning and angles.
Who should hire a GTM engineer?
The interviewer should be a RevOps leader, a marketing leader, or a sales leader. The role should report to the CMO, a VP of Growth, or a Director of RevOps, depending on org size. Those people should run the loop.
I saw a post from a PMM about to interview a GTM engineer for the first time, and I have questions about org charts at tech companies. Why is a PMM hiring a GTM engineer? Where's the revenue function? The growth leader? The CMO? A VP of sales who actually knows what this person does day to day? This is a strange way to hire, and it seems to be increasingly common.
If I were a GTM engineer candidate and got routed through a call with HR, I'd drop out of the process. HR doesn't know what this role is or does, full stop.
Why is a PMM running this interview?
A product marketer can have a decent read on what GTM engineering should be. That doesn't mean they should hire the person.
I'd love to see the JD they wrote, because there's a real contradiction here. A product person might actually understand the shape of the work. The role is moving toward internal product development for the revenue org, almost like an engineering resource embedded inside sales and marketing. A PMM still doesn't know what closes deals or drives revenue. If you're a product marketer, please don't tell me you do. Until you've carried a bag, it's not something you can fully comprehend.
Every department thinks it knows what salespeople should be doing. Same goes for marketing. It's strange how much flack revenue-generating functions take from people who know very little about how they actually work.
What should you ask a GTM engineer?
Get access to one of their GitHub repos and have them walk you through how they deployed and hosted it. Get into the technical details.
They don't need to be genius programmers. I'm certainly not, and I do fine. They do need to connect the technical work to business outcomes. If they can't, that's the real red flag.
I'd also want to see how they think about finding problems to solve, placing bets, measuring outcomes, and deciding which bets to double down on versus kill. Some workflows take a lot of effort and go nowhere. Highly personalized email campaigns, for instance, that yield very few outcomes when you'd be better off sending higher volume instead of building some crazy personalization workflow.
Ask them: what's a time you built a workflow that you thought was going to drive a lot of change, and it ended up taking more time than it should have? If we're being honest, we've all had one of those.
How should a GTM engineer report impact?
Before you hire, decide how this person will report metrics to the leader they sit under, or have them propose it. These people are expensive, and the work is easy to lose in the rest of the business.
One thing I personally struggled with, especially in my last role, was measuring the impact of everything I was doing. I was involved in so many different functions across the entire business that it was hard to tie it all back to me.
If you're going to hire a GTM engineer, figure out the reporting plan, or have them propose one. They need to justify the expense.
What if you aren't ready to hire one?
If you're running into the same problems, it may just be that you're not equipped to find and vet this kind of talent on your own right now. That's not a knock on you. It's a new enough discipline that most orgs haven't built the muscle yet.
A pair of advisors can help you vet people like this before you ever get to the interview stage.
The way we think about it at Apero: we're almost a pre-GTM engineer. If you know you eventually want to hire someone full-time, let us build the initial systems first, the ones your GTM engineer would inherit once they're in seat. While you're running the interview process, we can help you interview candidates the way this piece describes, hand off what we built, and stay on retainer for whatever they don't have the bandwidth to own yet.
If these are the problems you're actually in, reach out. Email ben@aperoadvisors.com or fill out the information below. You can add me on LinkedIn.
Questions
What is a GTM engineer?
A GTM engineer is an engineering resource embedded inside sales and marketing. They build internal systems for the revenue org, including outreach infrastructure, deliverability, experimentation, and the workflows between a list and a closed deal.
Who should hire a GTM engineer?
A RevOps leader, a marketing leader, or a sales leader should hire a GTM engineer. The role should report to the CMO, a VP of Growth, or a Director of RevOps, depending on org size.
Should a PMM interview a GTM engineer?
No. A product marketer may understand the internal-product shape of the work, but they don't know what closes deals or drives revenue. The interview loop belongs to the revenue function that will own the hire.
Should HR screen GTM engineer candidates?
No. If a GTM engineer candidate is routed through HR first, they should drop out. HR doesn't know what the role is or does.
What should you ask in a GTM engineer interview?
Ask them to walk through a GitHub repo they deployed and hosted, and how that work tied to a business outcome. Then ask about a workflow they built that they thought would drive change and that took more time than it should have.
What skills does a GTM engineer need?
Deliverability, DNS, inbox rotation, and automation around those functions are still core. They also help other teams with messaging and run experimentation around positioning and angles. They don't need to be genius programmers. They do need to connect technical work to revenue.
How do you measure a GTM engineer's impact?
Decide before you hire how they will report metrics to the leader they sit under, or have the candidate propose it. The work spans many functions, so without a reporting plan the expense is hard to justify.
Should you hire a GTM engineer or use an advisor first?
If you're not equipped to find and vet this talent yet, use advisors first. At Apero that means building the systems a full-time GTM engineer would inherit, helping you interview candidates, handing the work off, and staying on retainer for what they can't own yet.
