Is Engineer the new engineer?
July 21, 2026
Job titles seem to come and go in waves. Remember when Growth Hacker was the word of the minute? Everybody wanted one. People claimed to be one just to stand out in a crowd. The phrase magically appeared on countless LinkedIn profiles. I was asked in interviews if I was a growth hacker. Even with tons of ABM and growth marketing success, I am not sure I ever knew what the term meant. It’s happening again. In recent months I’ve seen a lot of job announcements for Content Engineer or GTM Engineer or even Marketing Engineer. These used to be marketing titles such as Content Manager or Content Writer or GTM Specialist or Product Manager. So when did we all become engineers?
Apparently, this is a somewhat recent trend. According to an analysis by Bloomberry, job postings for GTM Engineers increased by 205% in 2025 compared to the previous year. There were practically zero roles in 2023/24. Another study by the reprehensible data firm Apollo.ai (see my blog post your number or your name) said that in January 2026 there were more than 3,000 open positions for GTM Engineer in the US alone, signaling rapid normalization of the function. Clay coined the term, AirOps defined content engineering as a discipline, and Profound positioned the Marketing Engineer at the forefront of the AI visibility movement. Three platforms, three role profiles, one shared trend: marketing is becoming increasingly technical.
What does a Content Engineer do?
A Content Engineer is a highly technical hybrid role that designs and governs scalable content pipelines rather than merely writing copy.
Content engineering tends to bridge the gap between groups involved in the production of content and more technologically oriented departments software development or IT. They have to think like each group.
What does a GTM Engineer do?
A GTM Engineer is a revenue strategist who builds systems — not a tool administrator who stitches APIs together.
The role is emerging because AI adoption in GTM workflows has accelerated dramatically, and someone needs to govern, implement, and measure these systems.
While the RevOps leader develops the strategy, the GTM Engineer handles the execution.
Scale for the sake of scale.
What does a Marketing Engineer do?
First, abandon the notion that a Marketing Engineer is a product manager with an Engineering degree. They are totally different animals.
The role bridges the gap between complex engineering, data science, and marketing. They automate marketing infrastructure, analyze performance data, and translate highly technical product features into compelling, customer-facing campaigns and solutions.
The marketing tech stack is becoming an ever-larger part of our lives. Marketers need to be well versed in these tools since they’ll be increasingly a part of telling the brand story.
Many years ago, I was looking to hire a technical writer (the role would be responsible for product manuals, online help, and technical notes) for my team and was working with a talent acquisition person who was new to the role. I offhandedly mentioned that we needed someone with a degree in Journalism and a degree in Engineering. A few days later, the talent acquisition person called me with excitement in her voice. She found a local candidate with two degrees - Broadcast Journalism and Electrical Enginnering. Eureka! Not only did the candidate have the same engineering education and technical background as our internal customers, but his broadcast training also enabled him to say it in 30 seconds or less. He turned out to be a huge hit and is still there today. So there are people who can mix marketing and engineering, and mix them well.
Do I consider myself an engineer? Not exactly. I’m a marketer who happens to be something of a code nerd and understands how the tech in the stack will help grow the business. But my late father and brother, both of whom had engineering degrees, would be proud that I might finally have engineer in my job title.
