Clay CEO Kareem Amin to Discuss the Rise of the GTM Engineer at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

Two years ago, most companies did not have a GTM engineer, according to TechCrunch. The role is now showing up across tech, with practitioners using AI and automation to build revenue systems. Clay coined the role in 2023, and its GTM engineering guide describes GTM engineers as practitioners who build automated revenue workflows rather than executing individual GTM tasks by hand. The company says roughly 100 GTM engineering job listings are now appearing each month, including roles at Cursor, Lovable and Webflow.

AI is giving go-to-market teams new ways to research prospects, work with data, personalize outreach and automate workflows that once moved between separate tools and teams, TechCrunch reported. As those capabilities converge, companies are rethinking their GTM technology and who builds and manages the systems behind growth. Amin is expected to trace how AI has changed the traditional go-to-market stack and helped create a new discipline, giving attendees a look at AI-native GTM in practice. The session is also framed around a question for founders and GTM leaders: add more people to execute the existing process, or build systems that let existing people execute differently.

Clay started in Brooklyn in 2017 with a goal of giving more people access to the power of programming. Its original spreadsheet let users connect information and automate work without writing code. When salespeople, growth teams and agencies began using it to find and reach customers, Clay followed them into go-to-market. Today, the company provides infrastructure for GTM teams to access data, run agentic workflows and launch campaigns. Its OpenAI-powered agent, Claygent, automates research and outreach for sales, marketing and recruiting teams.

TechCrunch reported in February that Clay had tripled annual recurring revenue to $100 million in a year and announced an employee tender offer at a $5 billion valuation. The company has continued growing since then, announcing a $115 million Series D in September at a $7.1 billion valuation. Clay also announced a $1 million scholarship fund in September to train GTM engineers.

Amin co-founded Clay in 2017 and serves as its co-founder and CEO. Before Clay, he was vice president of product at The Wall Street Journal and co-founded collaboration startup Frame, which Sailthru acquired in 2012. He started Clay around the idea of putting programming capabilities into more people’s hands, and AI eventually gave that idea a new application: enabling GTM teams to build systems that automate research, data enrichment and outreach without relying on traditional engineering resources for every workflow.

The session is one of more than 200 sessions across six industry stages, roundtables and breakouts at Disrupt. More than 10,000 founders, investors, operators and tech leaders are expected, along with more than 250 speakers and more than 300 exhibiting startups, according to TechCrunch.