Do GTM Engineer Portfolios Need Full Clay Integrations or Are Advanced Clay Projects Enough?

·Aug 12, 2026 12:11 PM·

Hey everyone, I’m get some opinions from people working as GTM Engineers. I’m currently building out a GTM portfolio and learning Clay pretty deeply. Do you think it’s important for portfolio projects to show full integrations between Clay and systems like HubSpot/Salesforce, outbound tools, etc., or are strong projects built primarily inside Clay enough to demonstrate the skills employers are looking for? Some of the integration functionality requires a higher Clay plan, so I’m trying to figure out whether paying for that is actually necessary for a portfolio or if I’d be better off focusing on more sophisticated Clay workflows, enrichment, scoring, research, and automation logic. Would love to hear what you’d expect to see from someone trying to land their first GTM Engineer role. Thanks!

5 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Mihajlo M.
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Hey Sebastian, I’ve personally never hired for a GTM role, and I’m currently in my first GTM position, so take this with a grain of salt. From what I’ve seen online and across job boards, though, technical skills alone usually aren’t enough if you want to get hired as a GTM Engineer. I think it helps a lot if you can show that you’re able to take an ICP definition, segment the market, identify the right accounts and people, and actually reach them using tools like Clay. That probably gives you a better chance than only showcasing sophisticated workflows. And if we’re talking about technical skills specifically, I think being able to connect Clay with systems like HubSpot, Salesforce, and other outbound or RevOps tools is very valuable. Companies rarely use Clay in isolation. Showing that you understand integrations and can make Clay work as part of a larger GTM stack would, in my opinion, significantly improve your chances of getting hired. Also, I’d recommend following Joe Rhew on LinkedIn. He posts a lot of useful content about the GTM job market and does a good job of showing that “GTM Engineer” is really an umbrella term. There are different types of GTM Engineer roles, and each one has a slightly different focus and requires a different mix of skills. I’d suggest checking out his content to understand those different categories. It can give you a better idea of what to learn next and what kinds of projects you should add to your portfolio to be more competitive in the job market. Hope I helped!
3
Shriya N.
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Joe R. is in here too! 💪🏽
2
Joe R.
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Hey Mihajlo M. and Shriya N. thanks for the mention and tag! sebastian.mace - I agree with Mihajlo M. here. GTM Engineer is a bit of a catchall term, so if you’re approaching it from trying to land your first role, I’d start out by doing a bit of introspection. What parts of “GTM Engineering” do you excel in? What parts of it are you genuinely excited about that you’d be willing to way deeper into it than anyone else? Is it automations, or creative outbound? Is it systems architecture? Once you’ve answered that, go deep on that while keeping abreast of other domains of GTM engineering so your skill set isn’t too spiky. If you’re interested in what “flavours” of GTM Engineer companies are hiring, I created a 9-domain taxonomy based on analyzing ~5K job postings over the past 2 years here.
Saad A.
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Hey sebastian.mace, Honestly strong Clay workflows with solid enrichment, scoring and automation logic will get you much further than surface level integrations. Employers hiring their first GTM Engineer want to see that you can think in systems and build clean, well structured workflows - not just that you know how to connect a zap. The integrations are learnable on the job. The thinking behind ICP targeting, signal based workflows and enrichment waterfalls is what's actually hard to teach. Save the money on the higher plan for now and go deep on Clay fundamentals - a well built waterfall or a Claygent research workflow is way more impressive in a portfolio than a basic HubSpot sync.
tyee
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Agree with others. No need to pay more for the crm integration. However i would recommend signing up for a free hubspot account. You can download csv from clay and upload it to hubspot to show the data visual so you can see the experience and how your client would visualize and use it. Clients care more about the actual relevant data, efficient workflows and outcome of campaigns than any tool or integration.

Mihajlo M.
·
·
Hey Sebastian, I’ve personally never hired for a GTM role, and I’m currently in my first GTM position, so take this with a grain of salt. From what I’ve seen online and across job boards, though, technical skills alone usually aren’t enough if you want to get hired as a GTM Engineer. I think it helps a lot if you can show that you’re able to take an ICP definition, segment the market, identify the right accounts and people, and actually reach them using tools like Clay. That probably gives you a better chance than only showcasing sophisticated workflows. And if we’re talking about technical skills specifically, I think being able to connect Clay with systems like HubSpot, Salesforce, and other outbound or RevOps tools is very valuable. Companies rarely use Clay in isolation. Showing that you understand integrations and can make Clay work as part of a larger GTM stack would, in my opinion, significantly improve your chances of getting hired. Also, I’d recommend following Joe Rhew on LinkedIn. He posts a lot of useful content about the GTM job market and does a good job of showing that “GTM Engineer” is really an umbrella term. There are different types of GTM Engineer roles, and each one has a slightly different focus and requires a different mix of skills. I’d suggest checking out his content to understand those different categories. It can give you a better idea of what to learn next and what kinds of projects you should add to your portfolio to be more competitive in the job market. Hope I helped!
3
Shriya N.
·
·
Joe R. is in here too! 💪🏽
2
Joe R.
·
·
Hey Mihajlo M. and Shriya N. thanks for the mention and tag! sebastian.mace - I agree with Mihajlo M. here. GTM Engineer is a bit of a catchall term, so if you’re approaching it from trying to land your first role, I’d start out by doing a bit of introspection. What parts of “GTM Engineering” do you excel in? What parts of it are you genuinely excited about that you’d be willing to way deeper into it than anyone else? Is it automations, or creative outbound? Is it systems architecture? Once you’ve answered that, go deep on that while keeping abreast of other domains of GTM engineering so your skill set isn’t too spiky. If you’re interested in what “flavours” of GTM Engineer companies are hiring, I created a 9-domain taxonomy based on analyzing ~5K job postings over the past 2 years here.
Saad A.
·
·
Hey sebastian.mace, Honestly strong Clay workflows with solid enrichment, scoring and automation logic will get you much further than surface level integrations. Employers hiring their first GTM Engineer want to see that you can think in systems and build clean, well structured workflows - not just that you know how to connect a zap. The integrations are learnable on the job. The thinking behind ICP targeting, signal based workflows and enrichment waterfalls is what's actually hard to teach. Save the money on the higher plan for now and go deep on Clay fundamentals - a well built waterfall or a Claygent research workflow is way more impressive in a portfolio than a basic HubSpot sync.
tyee
·
·
Agree with others. No need to pay more for the crm integration. However i would recommend signing up for a free hubspot account. You can download csv from clay and upload it to hubspot to show the data visual so you can see the experience and how your client would visualize and use it. Clients care more about the actual relevant data, efficient workflows and outcome of campaigns than any tool or integration.