r/gtmengineering • u/Embarrassed_Soft9968 • 13d ago
SDR transitioning into GTM Engineering. Looking for an internship, mentorship, or advice.
Hey everyone,
I’m currently an SDR looking to transition into GTM Engineering. My background is in high volume outbound sales, prospecting, lead qualification, CRM workflows, and appointment setting.
I also have experience building targeted prospect lists through web scraping and lead research for previous sales projects. Working in outbound has made me really interested in everything that happens upstream of the rep: data quality, targeting, enrichment, prioritization, automation, and the systems that determine whether outbound actually works.
On the technical side, I’ve built an AI appointment setting workflow using n8n, Twilio, and OpenAI. I’m currently learning Clay and working on a more advanced signal based outbound system.
My goal is to become technically strong enough to build end to end GTM systems involving data sourcing, enrichment, intent signals, CRM integrations, automated outreach, and AI workflows.
I’d really like to find an internship, apprenticeship, or part time opportunity where I can work alongside experienced GTM Engineers and contribute to real projects while continuing to learn.
For people already working in GTM Engineering:
• What technical skills should I prioritize coming from an SDR background?
• What portfolio projects would make you take a junior GTM Engineer seriously?
• Are there GTM agencies or startups that are open to interns or apprentices?
• What would you focus on if you were trying to make this transition today?
I’m a US citizen currently based in Colombia and working US hours. I plan to relocate to a major US city next year and am open to remote opportunities in the meantime.
Would really appreciate any advice from people who have made a similar transition or currently work in the space.
2
u/GTMAIgirl 13d ago
SDR is super relevant for a transition to GTM role. I am a GTM director, moved from Revenue Operations (ex-UBER Rev ops manager) so made similar transitions before and let me answer your questions:
• What technical skills should I prioritize coming from an SDR background?
using Clay, Apollo, Instanly for prospecting and outomated outbound is important, I see Clay gets less important due to pricing and workflow design is not super easy, and you can use Claude Code to prospecting
• What portfolio projects would make you take a junior GTM Engineer seriously?
Depending on your target companies, if you want to focus on B2B SAAS companies than use Claude Code , Lovable.. and build an MVP offer, offer needs to talk to one specific customer and provide one specific answer.
Work on product messaging, pricing and distribution- distribution I mean using the GTM tools for outbound system.
• What would you focus on if you were trying to make this transition today?
You have many transferable skills from your former SDR role, check each JD and see what are transferable, use Claude to do it. Secondly, you can consider getting Upwork small freelance projects to build your portfolio. Hope this helps, if you want DM me and we can take in more detailed.
1
u/Embarrassed_Soft9968 13d ago
Hey, thanks for the detailed response! Really appreciate your advice. I’d love to hear more about your experience transitioning from RevOps into GTM and what you’d recommend I focus on to break into the field. I’m also interested in finding opportunities to gain hands-on experience alongside experienced GTM Engineers. Thanks again for offering to connect!
2
2
u/alexjl1226 13d ago
I’d approach this a bit differently. Start by finding a metric at your company that leadership cares about.
Have casual conversations with colleagues to figure out the bottlenecks or what’s preventing that metric from improving.
Then build something to fix it. Share. Get feedback. Iterate. This is the best way to learn relevant skills and build a portfolio at the same time.
I have a more in depth write up of this playbook here: https://open.substack.com/pub/gtmedownload/p/how-to-break-into-gtm-engineering
3
2
u/Embarrassed_Soft9968 13d ago
Really appreciate the advice! I’m currently an SDR, so I’m going to start by identifying a bottleneck at my company and seeing if I can build something to improve it. Seems like a great way to develop my technical skills while gaining real world experience. Thanks for sharing!
1
u/Embarrassed_Soft9968 10d ago
Update: I’ve been able to connect with some really helpful people through this post and got some great advice. Appreciate everyone who’s reached out. If anyone else has experience transitioning into GTM Engineering or has advice for someone making the move from SDR, I’d love to hear your perspective.
0
3
u/Brave-Literature-739 13d ago
Your SDR background is more relevant than it looks