As marketing becomes increasingly technical, the ability to work with marketing infrastructure, from data models and CRM architecture to automation logic and AI-driven systems—has become essential for modern marketing teams. Performance, scalability, and measurement now depend not just on individual campaigns, but on how effectively marketing systems are designed, integrated, and operated.
We spoke with Olga Ukrainskaya, a UK-based Technical Marketer with over ten years of experience in technically complex B2B environments, including industrial automation, embedded computing, IIoT and industrial software, enterprise audio-video collaboration hardware, and advanced manufacturing and industrial safety systems. Her work focuses on CRM architecture, marketing automation, data governance, and AI implementation across global organisations where marketing operates as a system rather than a set of isolated activities.
We discussed why technical backgrounds are becoming a competitive advantage in modern marketing and how this shift is reshaping marketing roles, team structures, and career paths.
TechBullion: Olga, “technical marketer” still sounds unusual to many people. What does it mean in 2026—and why is it becoming a competitive advantage?
Olga Ukrainskaya: For a long time, marketing success was defined by campaigns: creative, messaging, channel execution. That still matters, but it’s no longer the main constraint. The real constraint now is whether an organisation has the systems to scale—CRM logic, data quality, automation, measurement, and increasingly, AI embedded into workflows.
When I say “technical marketing,” I mean the ability to design and run marketing as a system. Not necessarily coding every day, but understanding how data moves, how lifecycle stages work, how routing and scoring should be configured, how tools integrate, and how to build processes that don’t break down when you add more markets, products, or volume.
That becomes a competitive advantage because marketing outcomes increasingly depend on infrastructure, not effort. If your system is weak, even great campaigns will underperform.
TechBullion: Why has this become urgent now? What changed in the environment?
Olga Ukrainskaya: Several things converged at once.
First is martech complexity. CRM systems, automation platforms, enrichment tools, analytics layers, compliance requirements, and AI are now tightly interconnected. In this ecosystem, you can’t win by “knowing a tool”—you win by knowing how to architect a stack and govern it effectively. Marketing performance increasingly depends on how well these systems are designed and integrated, not on how many campaigns a team can execute manually.
Second, expectations around speed and accountability have increased. Leadership expects marketing to scale without proportional headcount growth, show clear pipeline contribution, and operate with reliable data. That’s difficult when marketing relies on fragmented tools and manual processes rather than structured systems.
Third is AI adoption. McKinsey’s global survey found that 65% of respondents said their organisations were regularly using gen AI in early 2024, nearly double the prior survey. But AI only delivers value when the foundations exist—clean data, consistent definitions, clear workflows, and controls.
Finally, customer behaviour has changed. Buyers now interact with multiple channels simultaneously and expect real-time relevance. Meeting those expectations requires automation, clean data, and system-level orchestration—not campaigns alone.
TechBullion: You began in a non-technical discipline – linguistics – and then built your career in technical B2B markets. How did that shape your approach?
Olga Ukrainskaya: It made me comfortable translating between worlds. Linguistics trained me to reduce complexity without losing meaning. Then working in engineering-led environments forced me to respect how technical buyers think: specs, constraints, real-world trade-offs, and risk.
Later, when I moved deeper into CRM and automation, I realised that the same “translation” skill applies internally: marketing often needs to translate business intent—pipeline goals, qualification rules, customer segments—into system logic that tools can execute reliably.
So my approach ended up being less “campaign-first” and more “system-first”: build the operating model, then scale execution through it.
TechBullion: If we’re talking about “technical skills,” what capabilities do marketers now need that weren’t expected ten years ago?
Olga Ukrainskaya: The biggest shift is that marketing roles increasingly require systems literacy.
CRM competence used to mean “update records.” Now it means understanding data models, lifecycle logic, routing, scoring, attribution, and how that connects to sales and revenue workflows.
Automation competence used to mean “set up a nurture.” Now it means workflow architecture: conditions, branching, quality checks, error handling, and integration patterns across tools.
Data literacy is also non-negotiable. Even if you’re not a data analyst, you need to understand what “good data” looks like, how fields are defined, what breaks reporting, and how segmentation logic actually works.
AI has added another layer: not just “using AI for copy,” but understanding where AI belongs in the system, how to test it, how to control it, and how to prevent it from amplifying bad inputs.
In the UK and Europe, regulatory expectations reinforce this shift—privacy-by-design and AI governance make disciplined data and system design essential rather than optional.
TechBullion: Industry reports often say marketers struggle with data foundations. Do you see that in practice?
Olga Ukrainskaya: Absolutely. A good example is Salesforce’s State of Marketing research, which found that only 31% of marketers are fully satisfied with their ability to unify customer data sources.
That gap shows up everywhere: inconsistent segmentation, unreliable reporting, misaligned “lead quality” debates, and automation that triggers at the wrong time because the underlying fields aren’t trustworthy.
In my experience, this is why technical marketers outperform: they don’t start with “more campaigns.” They start with “what is the lifecycle, what are the definitions, what data do we trust, and what logic should the system enforce?”
TechBullion: Can you share an example where technical marketing skills made the difference?
Olga Ukrainskaya: One example I’ve written about publicly is building an automated localisation workflow for email campaigns—using Microsoft tools plus an Azure-hosted LLM step for quality assurance. The point wasn’t “AI magic.” The point was workflow design: building a structured process, routing, approvals, version control, and checks so global marketing could move faster without chaos.
Another example is CRM workflow design more broadly: building “elastic” CRM workflows that respond to real engagement signals, not static timestamps—so that automation supports commercial decisions rather than just sending emails.
Across projects like these, the consistent pattern is: technical thinking turns marketing from manual execution into a repeatable system.
TechBullion: We’re hearing more about Marketing Operations and “platform ownership.” Why is ownership suddenly so important?
Olga Ukrainskaya: Because using a platform isn’t the same as owning outcomes.
Ownership means taking responsibility for the architecture: definitions, fields, lifecycle stages, integrations, workflows, governance, and measurement. That’s what determines whether marketing is scalable and whether performance is explainable.
Gartner describes marketing operations as the backbone of marketing—optimising processes, technology, and data to improve efficiency and effectiveness. That framing is exactly right: without that backbone, marketing becomes a series of disconnected actions.
TechBullion: How has AI changed what’s required from marketers—does it reduce the need for technical skills?
Olga Ukrainskaya: It increases the need.
AI amplifies what’s already true about your organisation. If your data is messy, AI makes the mess faster. If your definitions are unclear, AI produces confident-looking outputs that don’t map to reality.
McKinsey’s research shows how quickly gen AI moved from novelty to regular use. But adoption isn’t the same as operational value. The marketers who get value are the ones who can embed AI into controlled workflows with quality checks and governance.
The direction of travel is clear: Gartner predicts that 60% of brands will use agentic AI to facilitate streamlined one-to-one interactions by 2028, which implies marketing becomes less channel-based and more system-orchestrated. Whether organisations hit that timeline or not, it tells you what skills will matter: architecture, governance, workflow design, and measurement.
TechBullion: What does this shift mean for marketing careers and leadership? Some would argue that marketing is becoming too technical and losing its creative soul. How do you respond?
Olga Ukrainskaya: I’d challenge that framing. Technical marketing doesn’t replace creativity—it scales it.
The best campaigns still require insight, positioning, and creative execution. But if that work sits on unreliable data or broken workflows, it won’t scale and you won’t know what’s working. Technical thinking creates the infrastructure that lets creativity have impact.
That said, marketing careers are splitting into two strong tracks, both valuable. One stays closer to brand, positioning, and customer understanding. The other grows around technical operations: CRM architecture, automation, data governance, AI integration.
Leadership increasingly requires fluency in both because senior marketing leaders now have to answer: “Can we trust our data?”, “Can we scale across markets?”, “How do we use AI responsibly?”From a broader career perspective, LinkedIn’s Work Change Report expects 70% of the skills used in most jobs to change by 2030, with AI as a major catalyst. Marketing won’t be immune—if anything, it’s one of the functions where tools and skills are changing fastest.
TechBullion: Much of technical marketing work is invisible when it’s done well. How do you make its value visible inside organisations?
Olga Ukrainskaya: By shifting the focus from activity to reliability.
Both McKinsey and Gartner consistently show that high-performing marketing organisations create value by reducing friction in their operating models — faster time-to-launch, fewer manual steps, cleaner data, and reporting leadership can trust. To make that visible, I rely on before-and-after comparisons: how long processes took before automation, how many manual interventions were removed, and how data consistency improved once governance was introduced.
It also helps to make system decisions explicit. When lifecycle logic, routing rules, and automation criteria are documented and understood, performance becomes explainable rather than accidental. That’s when technical marketing is recognised as core infrastructure, not background support.
TechBullion: You also mentor and speak in the community. What patterns do you see in people successfully moving into technical marketing?
Olga Ukrainskaya: The strongest pattern is that hands-on practice beats passive learning. People progress fastest when they build something real: a simple lifecycle model, a scoring prototype, a workflow that removes manual work, a clean data definition document.
I also see that technical confidence is often the differentiator. Many people can do the work but don’t position it as technical expertise. If you can design workflow logic, build segmentation rules, or work with data models—you’re already in technical territory.
And the market is rewarding it. Through communities like Ladies Who Tech—where we support women developing technical and digital skills in technology—I see more marketers actively building these capabilities and moving beyond campaign tactics into system-level thinking.
Sources referenced
[1] Gartner CMO Survey Reveals Marketing Budgets Have Dropped to 7.7% of Overall Company Revenue in 2024
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-05-13-gartner-cmo-survey-reveals-marketing-budgets-have-dropped-to-seven-point-seven-percent-of-overall-company-revenue-in-2024?
[2] 2025 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic: 100X growth since 2011, but now with AI… – chiefmartec
https://chiefmartec.com/2025/05/2025-marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-100x-growth-since-2011-but-now-with-ai/
[3] [18] Olga Ukrainskaya | HackerNoon
https://hackernoon.com/u/olgaukr?
[4] Marketing Alumni Panel @ Huddersfield Students’ Union
https://www.huddersfieldsu.co.uk/groups/marketing-society-177c/events/marketing-alumni-panel?
[5] The state of AI in early 2024 | McKinsey
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai-2024?
[6] [17] legislation.gov.uk
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2016/679/data.xht?
[7] AI Act | Shaping Europe’s digital future
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai?
[8] New Salesforce Report: AI is Marketers’ Top Priority – And Biggest Headache – Salesforce
https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/marketing-trends-ai-data/
[9] How I Automated a 13-Language Email Workflow Using Only AI and Microsoft Tools | HackerNoon
https://hackernoon.com/how-i-automated-a-13-language-email-workflow-using-only-ai-and-microsoft-tools?
[10] Building Elastic CRM Workflows That React to Real-Time Engagement | HackerNoon
https://hackernoon.com/building-elastic-crm-workflows-that-react-to-real-time-engagement?
[11] Marketing Operations: The CMO’s Essential Guide | Gartner
https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/role/marketing-organization-operations-leader?
[12] Press Release: Gartner Predicts 60% of Brands Will Use Agentic AI to Deliver Streamlined One-to-One Interactions by 2028
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-01-15-gartner-predicts-60-percent-of-brands-will-use-agentic-ai-to-deliver-streamlined-one-to-one-interactions-by-2028?
[13] Work Change Report: Skills for jobs set to change by 70% by 2030
https://news.linkedin.com/2025/work-change-report-2025?
[14] LWT: AI Era
https://ladieswhotech.co.uk/
[15] Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey Reveals Marketing Budgets Have Flatlined at 7.7% of Overall Company Revenue
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-05-12-gartner-2025-cmo-spend-survey-reveals-marketing-budgets-have-flatlined-at-seven-percent-of-overall-company-revenue?
[16] 2024 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic — 14,106 martech products (27.8% growth YoY) – chiefmartec
https://chiefmartec.com/2024/05/2024-marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-14106-martech-products-27-8-growth-yoy/
