RevOps is breaking down in 2025 - here's why

The GTM Engineer and RevOps Fracture explained.

As I’ve gained a bit more distance from the RevOps scene in recent weeks, a few things are becoming clearer to me.

Revenue Operations is still misunderstood by most people – and some of them even have the RevOps title.

Instead of going into the 20th attempt to try and educate everyone, I think it might simply be time to take a different approach.

It’s all the same

RevOps, SalesOps, GTMOps.

It’s all the same to 99% of folks. And once you dig into what those people are actually doing in their jobs, you find that they’re doing the same things.

Sales Forecasting. Commission Payments. Territory Planning. CRM Admin. In short, the better way to describe this role is simply “SalesOps”.

So for the sake of everyone (except for some of us elites), we should just call it SalesOps.

And the only time we’ll call it CS Ops or Marketing Ops, is when there’s truly someone working to actively support that team (read: they’re actually doing CS or marketing stuff full time).

It’s a RevOps fracture, not an evolution

The issue with the RevOps role, is that it’s still struggling to find a meaningful “Second Act”. The first act of helping doing some of the annoying tasks in sales, marketing and CS were completed very well.

But the second act of trying to connect the role to Revenue, is still far, far away.

And you know what folks? That’s totally okay.

Not every role needs to have a CEO or CRO future.

So what do I think is the future of RevOps then?

I think in 2025 we’ll see an interesting fracture happening.

And I really think it's a fracture, and not some evolution.

I think we’ll see GTM Engineering emerge as the second act that RevOps has been dreaming of for years.

GTM Engineering is finally dropping the “Ops” - which I think for most people reads like “Admin Support”.

But the main benefit is that the value of the role is immediately clear for everyone:

Take all of this Data, Process and traditional Tech (CRM etc). And merge it with all the AI applications out there to…

1. Drive revenue (think AI SDRs, AI AEs, AI CSMs)

2. Reduce Costs (think AI Intelligence Layer to shrink internal teams: Code Writing for Devs, Marketing Copy and Workflows)

Every C-Level looking at this set of Lego pieces (data, tools, process, AI) recognises immediately that they don’t really have anyone skilled working on combining these things. And they intuitively know that RevOps is not necessarily the answer.

Why is that you ask?

Have you ever tried letting SalesOps write email sequences during the Outreach/Salesloft roll out a few years back?

Well, if you have you know that it just doesn’t work. They know a great deal about the sales process, but tell them to write the email and you’ll end up with an opening line like: “noticed you’re working as XYZ at company-name”.

They have all this other knowledge - but not the “real” commercial stuff you need to know in this case.

So then the question is… whom can we give this company-wide strategic opportunity to?

And the answer more and more often will be: GTM Engineers.

So how does this work in reality?

As many of you, I’ve also seen the Klarna story about how they’re churning Salesforce to build something in house.

I think some of this is frankly fake news to help them prepare for their IPO - and I know this from some senior sources inside the company.

But, there’s more than just talk here that all of us can learn from.

They have weekly meetings between Engineering, Commercial and Ops, to figure out what else in the company they could automate away.

This is clearly a company-wide effort for them, and this set-up probably makes sense. But it is a bit like having engineering build the website or the CRM. We know now that this is not the best way of doing things.

The emerging solution for the GTM will be a GTM Engineer, or a team around that.

And they’ll bring a unique set of skills to the table, which makes this role work out:

1. Solid technical skills. No need to write SQL or Java Script, but enough to connect APIs, build workflows, and work with AI

2. Solid commercial skills. Having actually “served a tour” in one of the functions they’re engineering on will be crucial. They should have been an SDR, AE or CSM. They need to have walked the walk and ideally proven themselves to a degree.

Because the folks that will be really successful are people that are able to blend operations and execution.

And the beauty of all of this is that this team will clearly own a Revenue number.

I talked to many RevOps folks, and even though they said they’re married to the revenue target, many times they really weren’t. And I don’t blame them.

But GTM Engineers will very much own their part of the funnel. Some of this is tied to Revenue directly, other parts more to opportunities, MQLs or Cost savings.

The difference is that this team won't just “support” others in achieving their goals. In this next step, these teams will be the ones executing the work and will be held fully accountable to achieving it.

With this responsibility come some interesting changes:

1. People in this job will earn a lot more money. Period.

2. All shitty tasks will be removed. If you go into this as RevOps, I don’t think you’ll be calculating commissions much longer.

3. The standing in the org will change. You are being seen as someone adding revenue. Your vice will now be heard very differently.

So how is this a fracture from RevOps?

I think the ones in RevOps that can make the jump, e.g. having actual front-line experience, will set aside the RevOps title. And instead will take the GTM Engineering one.

And I think RevOps over time will become a role synonymous with IT Support. Doing random support things across the org no one else really has time for or wants to do.

And in a few years time, people won't even make the connection anymore that GTM Engineering and RevOps used to be almost the same.

And here comes the kicker:

Every C-Level will easily understand that this role is not SalesOps 2.0, but instead a different thing for one simple reason: this role is directly contributing revenue.

While it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out – the same diseases that plagued RevOps will plague this role too.

Where will the role report into? Can it effectively change areas owned by someone else?..

But maybe in the beginning, everyone will just have their own GTM engineer.