Kareem Amin is betting that the future of sales and marketing belongs to the GTM engineer — and he is using TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to explain why. The Clay co-founder and CEO coined the term himself back in 2023, and now he is taking the AI Stage to argue that the role is not a niche title but the shape of a whole new job category.
The session, titled “The GTM Engineer: How AI Created Tech’s Next Big Job Category,” traces how AI has transformed the traditional go-to-market stack. Amin will show attendees what AI-native GTM looks like in practice and how it is changing company growth.
What a GTM engineer actually does
Hours of research into accounts, data cleansing, lead qualification, outreach preparation, and the transfer of information between systems make up traditional go-to-market work. GTM engineering instead employs AI, data, and automation to create repeatable systems from that work. Rather than carrying out individual GTM tasks manually, practitioners construct automated revenue workflows.
The position came into being as AI and automation joined together, making it possible for businesses to bring workflows that used to travel between distinct tools and groups under one roof. This joining up is altering both the technology itself and the people working with it.
From Brooklyn to a $100 million run rate
The company began in Brooklyn in 2017, with an aim to put programming’s power within reach for more individuals. Its first product was a spreadsheet that enabled users to link data and automate tasks without needing to write code. As salespeople, growth teams, and agencies began using it to locate and contact customers, Clay moved into go-to-market alongside them.
The firm now supplies GTM teams with the means to reach data, carry out automated workflows, and put campaigns into motion. Its agent, Claygent, driven by OpenAI, handles research and outreach on behalf of sales, marketing, and recruiting teams.
The company’s development has been marked by swift expansion. In February, TechCrunch reported that its annual recurring revenue had grown to $100 million over a year, and it also disclosed an employee tender offer at a $5 billion valuation. Since then, Clay has kept growing, with a $115 million Series D announced in September at a $7.1 billion valuation.
Training the next generation
In September, Clay announced a $1 million scholarship fund aimed at training GTM engineers, the very category that sits at the heart of Amin’s Disrupt session. About 100 GTM engineering job openings appear each month now, with positions available at firms such as Cursor, Lovable, and Webflow.
This session presents a fresh approach for founders and GTM leaders who need to decide how to allocate their next dollar or whether to make a new hire. The question it poses is simple: should you bring on more staff to carry out your current system, or should you construct systems that allow your existing team to operate in a new way?
From product leader to founder
Clay’s co-founder and CEO, Amin, founded the company in 2017, and he previously served as VP of product at The Wall Street Journal before co-founding Frame, a collaboration startup that was later acquired by Sailthru in 2012.
The idea behind Clay was to get programming capabilities into more people’s hands. Later, AI provided a fresh use for that idea, letting GTM teams construct systems that automate research, data enrichment, and outreach without depending on traditional engineering resources for every workflow.
The Disrupt agenda
The Disrupt event runs October 13–15 at Moscone West in San Francisco, and it features more than 10,000 founders, investors, operators, and tech leaders alongside 250+ speakers and 300+ exhibiting startups. That makes up 200+ sessions across six industry stages, roundtables, and breakouts, with “The GTM Engineer: How AI Created Tech’s Next Big Job Category” among them.
| Session | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| The GTM Engineer | October 13–15 | Moscone West, San Francisco |
The events also provide ways for people to connect with potential customers, investors, partners, and other founders facing similar growth difficulties, beyond the sessions themselves.
Why this matters
The question GTM engineering tries to answer has been around for a while: how do you find and reach the right customers without simply adding more people and more tools? The role itself is new, but the issue it’s meant to solve is not. At Disrupt, you can see how AI is changing that equation — and meet the people building what comes next.
One of the founders behind the category will be speaking at Amin’s session. The GTM engineer role is worth knowing about, whether you are building a company or reconsidering how your team handles sales, marketing, and growth.
That the man who named the thing now explains it is the kind of story that rarely gets told at a conference. The irony is that Clay’s own co-founder is doing the defining.
Source material: “TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Clay’s Kareem Amin on the rise of the GTM engineer,” TechCrunch.
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