GTM Engineering with Clay’s First GTM Engineer with Yash Tekriwal

Clay pioneered GTM engineering and went from $1M to $100M in ARR in 2 years. I talked to the person who invented the role of GTM Engineer at Clay. Yash Tekriwal, Clay's first GTM engineer - back when the $3B company was still figuring out what that even meant. What started as one person drowning in too many jobs (RevOps + Sales + BDR + data analyst) has since become a new category that's now reshaping how startups think about go-to-market. You’ll learn: Why RevOps is "maintenance" but GTM engineering is a growth lever The skills that define a great GTM engineer today (hint: it involves vibe coding) What "treating go-to-market like a product" actually looks like in practice Two org models for GTM engineering teams - and which to start with "Automate the manual, but don't automate the important" In Today's Episode We Discuss: 01:02 - The origin story of GTM engineering at Clay and why the term is polarizing 04:43 - GTM engineer vs RevOps: maintenance function versus growth lever 07:15 - Treating go-to-market like a product team, not an individual sport 10:29 - Three experiments every GTM team should run on inbound and outbound 15:06 - The essential GTM tech stack: CRM, enrichment, sequencing, and what actually matters 18:50 - Tools founders should consider when getting started—and the automation trap to avoid 21:50 - Zero to $1M: be thrifty on tools and process information manually 25:58 - What to look for in your first GTM engineering hire (hint: it's not technical skills) 28:46 - Signals that you need to hire a GTM engineer for outbound vs inbound motions 31:38 - Scaling past $10M: specialize fast and the hyperscaler dilemma 35:55 - Two org models for GTM engineering: centralized hit team vs embedded engineers 40:16 - The ideal GTM engineer profile: tinkerers, not traditional engineers 43:49 - Why engineers are not the ideal candidates for GTM engineering roles 45:25 - Can salespeople become great GTM engineers? The sales hacker archetype 47:46 - Resources to learn GTM engineering: Clay University, substacks, YouTube channels, and agencies 51:33 - Top three things founders must know about GTM engineering at any stage 52:48 - The most creative GTM engineering builds: satellite imagery, hospital capacity, and custom memes 57:04 - Personal lessons from scaling at Clay: ego death, pivoting, and balancing maintenance with big bets 1:00:30 - The one thing Yash would change: stop oscillating and let problems become obvious