In the past weeks, I’ve been befuddled by what a GTM engineer was.
With a cursory late night search- one of those when you’re absolutely cooked and you’re doom scrolling when you shouldn’t be- I found the definition: “a technical specialist who builds, automates, and scales the software infrastructure and data pipelines that drive a company’s revenue.”
Wot the hecky does that mean?
And so, I subconsciously leaned against my own lack of experience to understand what the term meant.
GTM (Go To Market) = hand waved as some marketing + sales things. Oh no. Something I’m very unfamiliar with.
Engineer = Pushing code. Perfect. Something I do every day.
I saw a GTM engineer as this very technical role that required a classically trained software engineer to do sales, something I knew nothing about.
I interpreted all the current hype in the role as “holy crap this is something super complicated that I am absolutely too dumb to learn.”
Lo and behold I finally sat down and read into what a GTM engineer did in a typical day (embarrassingly after a couple weeks of procrastination).
Oh how I stupid I am to have not done this earlier.
What I interpreted as very “technical” was demystified into concrete actions of messaging Claude, vibe coding, auto sending emails, and reading slack.
Despite of a deep realm of context I still have not unearthed, I immediately shattered my weeks long avoidance to engage with the concept of a GTM engineer.
New concepts are bundled with uninformed pre-conceived notions informed by similar but unrelated past experience and fundamental self identity.
This manifests as resistance against engaging with new things. They seem too difficult and you see yourself too unequipped.
The resistance itself is a strong and effective impasse for action.
It keeps you comfortable. You stay familiar with your surroundings and how you see yourself.
Yet, the resistance is also fragile.
It really just requires looking over the edge. What you think of as bluffs that drop to a harrowing demise is often just the next step in a descending staircase towards improvement.
Thus, the crux of engaging with anything new is boiling it down to specifics as soon as possible—to get an accurate view of it and the world surrounding it.
This is best achieved by operationalizing as soon as possible. Ask yourself: what are the series of definitive actions that correspond with that thing?
It’s imperative to ignore all the hullabaloo surrounding new concepts.
Do definitions matter? Do outside opinions matter? Do your opinions on yourself matter? I suppose later, but not with getting started.
If it’s difficult to ignore, then push to be courageous: to act in spite of fear.
It’s far from running into war where death is in the air, but it can be framed that way for initial motivation. Think how badass it would be to conquer a devilish enemy.
After the new thing is operationalized, you realize you’ve been bamboozling yourself from something potentially really worthwhile.
You wasted your own time thinking it was hard and avoiding it.
You’re now free to drill down further or move onto the next thing.
Psst… here what I’m consuming this week: