Saad Riaz — Ops Manager & GTM Engineer

01About

Systems on one side, people on the other.

An engineering degree and an MSc in Cyberpsychology. Half of GTM is systems design, and the other half is knowing what the person on the other end will actually respond to.

Portrait of Saad Riaz — Saad RiazGTM_ENG

For two and a half years I was the founder’s right hand at UpHire, a Canadian recruitment firm placing sales leaders and decision-makers into SaaS companies. As the sole operations hire, I owned the outbound engine that brought clients in, the sending infrastructure under it, the CRM the team worked in, the reporting the founder relied on, and onboarding for everyone who joined. I wrote all the campaign copy myself, and I automated anything manual that happened too often, building agentic workflows wherever they saved time. Beyond GTM, I took on financial management, calendar, and admin, which gave the CEO more working time for business development and gave him his evenings back with his wife and daughter.

Before that, I spent nine years across very different fields: automation engineering in US manufacturing plants, donor-funded programme delivery for the Gates Foundation, Meta, and USAID, and behavioural research. The pattern was always the same. I arrived with no playbook, worked out what the system should be, built it, and got people to actually use it.

I’m also the author of two published self-development books, with a literary fiction novel on the way. More on the books ↗

It’s me and my cat, Rufus, hoping to change people’s lives one agentic workflow at a time.

~/saad — zsh

$ whoami --json
{
  "name": "Saad Riaz",
  "role": ["Ops Manager", "GTM Engineer"],
  "vertical_depth": "recruitment & staffing, 2.5 yrs",
  "order_of_work": ["signal", "list", "copy"],
  "ops": ["admin", "HR & onboarding", "tools training"],
  "education": ["BS ECE, WPI", "MSc Cyberpsychology, IADT"],
  "based": "Islamabad, PK (UTC+5)",
  "hours": "North American",  // proven for 2.5 yrs
  "open_to": ["full-time", "contract", "fractional"],
  "status": "available"
}

P/01

Timing beats targeting

Someone new in a seat is still deciding how things should work. Someone settled is defending decisions already made.

P/02

Infra is the foundation

Nothing else you build matters once the sending infrastructure goes quiet. I learned that the hard way first.

P/03

I've sat on the buyer's side

I warmed inboxes myself, then bought pre-warmed ones when it stopped being worth the time. I know when a team decides to stop doing it in-house.

P/04

Keep replies human

I handled replies personally, not with automation. The outreach worked because a real person was reading and responding.

02Case Studies

Systems shipped, numbers attached.

Three builds from UpHire. Every figure is either shown in a screenshot or marked as approximate.

CASE_01UpHire · Outbound

Signal-based outbound: 90-day job changers

ClayAI columnsWaterfall enrichmentLemlistLinkedInVoice notes

521

Leads

99.5%

Delivered

42.8%

LinkedIn accept

5.2%

Answered

2 clients

Closed within about a month

Idea

Target sales leaders (VP Sales, CRO, Head of Sales) who started at a SaaS company in the last 90 days. New leaders rebuild or grow their team in the first two quarters, so the timing does most of the work.

Build

Clay table 1, companies: filtered by city, size and industry (SaaS) into a clean shortlist before touching people.
Clay table 2, people: enriched LinkedIn profiles, used a formula to confirm a recent job change, then AI columns to verify buyer fit.
Further AI checks removed companies already contacted, anything on the DNC list, and staffing firms.
Formulas to clean names and normalise messy titles and company names. Waterfall enrichment for verified email, plus a message preview for every row.

Sequence

has_verified_email? ├─ yes → email → LinkedIn invite │ ├─ accepted ≤2d → chat → voice note │ │ → email + chat, 2d apart │ └─ no accept → 2nd email │ → LinkedIn path (≤80d) └─ no → LinkedIn only (≤90d) └─ accepted → chat → voice note → 2 follow-ups

Insight

The LinkedIn voice note moved replies more than any other step. The first chat promises it, and the follow-up asks whether they listened.

Result

Two clients closed within about a month.

Lemlist branching sequence for the 90-day job-change campaign — Lemlist: the full branching sequence

Lemlist campaign statistics for the 90-day job-change campaign — Lemlist: funnel and campaign stats

Read the sequence copy

Email 1Step 1

Hey {{firstName}}, congrats on the new role at {{companyName}}. Solid move. They're lucky to have you. You've probably got a million things flying at you already. So I'll keep this tight: We're a recruiting team that's helped hundreds of SaaS companies hire elite sales people. Within the first few quarters, having access to market intel, salary data and who your competitors are hiring is key. I've got some ideas on how we could support. Is it cool if I share a quick video? James

LinkedIn chat 1After invite accepted

Hey {{firstName}}, congrats on the new role at {{companyName}}! I know it's busy in a new position, so I'll shoot over a quick voice note when I get a minute. Let me know your thoughts.

LinkedIn chat 2After the voice note

Hey {{firstName}}, did you get a chance to listen?

Breakup emailFinal step

Hey {{firstName}}, feels like my timing's off. I'll hit pause here, no stress. If you ever need market intel or comp data for sales hiring, I'm one message away. Good luck ramping up. James

▶ Loom walkthrough of the Clay + Lemlist build

CASE_02UpHire · RevOps

Rebuilding the CRM in Airtable

AirtableAutomationsInterfacesFormsZapierRecruiterFlow → Airtable

14

Active automations

2,000+

Candidates imported

5

APIs connected

2

Clients trained on Airtable

~50%

Monthly tool spend: ~$3–4k → ~$1–2k CAD*

Problem

We were paying for a stack of tools that overlapped instead of working as one system. Costs kept climbing and nobody trusted the data.

Build

Migrated off RecruiterFlow and built our own CRM in Airtable around how the team actually worked, not how the software wanted them to.
Rebuilt the candidate database from scratch.
Automations for stage moves, reminders, status updates and handoffs, so the process ran itself instead of someone chasing it.
AI automations in the base, such as a candidate-submission generator that drafts a client submission from the resume and interview transcript.
Owned the reporting layer, so the founder could see pipeline and delivery numbers without having to ask.

Result

Monthly tool spend fell by close to half. Recruiting also got noticeably smoother, and people actually used the system.

Airtable automations list with 14 active automations — Airtable: the automations list, including AI text generation

Airtable client feedback form with approve or reject decision — Client feedback form that writes decisions back to the candidate record

* Approximate figures from memory, not audited.

CASE_03UpHire · Infrastructure

Deliverability infrastructure

DomainsSPFDKIMDMARCWarmupRotationZapmailInstantlyLemlist

15

Domains

33

Inboxes

≤30

Cold sends / inbox / day

~1k / day

Emails at peak, recovered after a domain burn with no pause in live campaigns

Owned

The whole sending layer: domains, SPF/DKIM/DMARC authentication, inbox warmup, rotation and cleanup, with Instantly and Lemlist campaigns running on top.

Failure

Early on, the domains burned out. The setups in Instantly had every tracking marker switched on: opens, clicks and replies. Turning tracking off improved deliverability, and I refocused on warming accounts properly. The live campaign never paused.

Discipline

Cold sends capped at 30 per inbox per day.
Warmup starts at 20–30 a day and rises by 1–2 at a time.
Placement monitoring and volume ramping, with production failures diagnosed live.

Evolution

I started by warming everything myself, then moved to pre-warmed inboxes from Zapmail once managing it in-house stopped being worth the time. Cold-email infrastructure companies sell against exactly that decision point, and I've been on both sides of it.

Zapmail domain dashboard listing purchased sending domains — Zapmail: purchased sending domains

03Projects

Campaigns, automations and builds.

Other work from the same engine: campaigns for clients and products, the plumbing between tools, and the AI layer.

PRJ_01Client account

Candidate outreach inside a client's stack

Clay sourcing and a Lemlist sequence configured directly in a SaaS client's account to fill a Manager of Sales Development role, so their team could run it themselves. I did this for 3 client accounts.

101

Leads

99.7%

Delivered

61%

LinkedIn accept

59.4%

Answered

Lemlist branching flow with per-step stats — Per-step stats across the branches

Lemlist campaign statistics — Campaign stats

ClayLemlistVoice notes

PRJ_02Product launch

Submit: launching a SaaS tool to recruiters

Go-to-market for Submit, a tool that writes candidate submissions in a recruiter's own voice in about 30 seconds. Recruiter-to-recruiter angle, with a free no-card link instead of a meeting ask. Cold email plus an A/B-tested LinkedIn sequence.

3,245

Leads

35.1%

LinkedIn accept

5.2%

Replied

LinkedIn A/B sequence with per-variant stats — A/B variants at every LinkedIn step

Email A/B test

Version ARemoves risk

Recruiter to recruiter: I built a tool that writes candidate submissions in your voice in 30 seconds. Free, no card: trysubmit.com If the first draft doesn't sound like you wrote it, reply here and I'll rewrite it myself.

Version BRemoves effort

Recruiter to recruiter: I built a tool that writes candidate submissions in your voice in 30 seconds. Free, no card: trysubmit.com Just paste in one submission you already wrote, and it learns your voice from that one example.

LemlistA/B testingPLG

PRJ_03Always on

Evergreen cold sequence, and what I'd change

A five-email Instantly sequence to SaaS sales leaders in Toronto, running at about 500 emails a day with pattern-interrupt subject lines, a client story as proof, and a reply-to-book CTA.

~500

Emails / day

4%

Reply rate

3

Clients in 12 months

IF I REBUILT IT TODAY

Drop the "RE:" on a first email and the "Sent from my iPhone" line. Both fake context, and buyers and spam filters both notice.
Add a signal per lead (hiring, funding, a new leader) so each email answers "why this person, why now".
Cut Email 1 to under 75 words, with one idea and a softer CTA.

InstantlyCopywriting

PRJ_04Production

Sourcing-to-interview pipeline

One automated path from a LinkedIn URL to a booked interview. Clay enriches through a waterfall, records land in Airtable, and Lemlist starts outreach. An "Interested" reply fires Zapier to update Airtable, then Cal.com bookings notify the team in Slack.

Diagram: LinkedIn to Clay to Airtable and Lemlist, Zapier, Cal.com and Slack — System diagram

Zapier zap: Instantly event creates or updates an Airtable record — Zapier: Instantly event → Airtable record

ClayAirtableLemlistZapierCal.comSlack

PRJ_05Production

AI as an operating layer

AI built into the workflow itself. Airtable automations generate client-ready candidate submissions, company insights and cleaned-up notes at the click of a button. A Make scenario watches a private Slack channel and answers human messages with OpenAI.

Make scenario: Slack to OpenAI to Slack — Make: Slack → OpenAI → Slack

Airtable AIMakeOpenAIClaude

PRJ_06Internal

Built with Claude Code

Claude Code is part of my daily work for internal tooling. I built an in-house app with the founder to simplify how candidates are delivered to clients, and I built this site. To be clear, this is real daily use, not production engineering depth. I also run n8n for personal automation agents.

Claude Coden8nHTML/CSS/JS

04Experience

Nine years, one pattern.

Arrive without a playbook, design the system, build it, and get people to use it.

Feb 2024 — PresentRemote · Toronto hours

GTM Operations & Executive Partner

UpHire Recruitment · Canadian recruitment firm placing sales & GTM talent

Built and ran the outbound engine across 15 domains and 33 inboxes at about 1,000 emails a day, holding around a 5.2% reply rate through Instantly, Lemlist and HeyReach.
Architected the Clay sourcing engine behind every campaign, with enrichment waterfalls, AI columns and hiring and job-change triggers.
Booked 1–3 new-client calls a week, bringing in 3–5 new clients a year for the agency and 10–12 client companies across the engagement.
Cut monthly tool spend from about $3–4k CAD to $1–2k CAD by migrating the CRM into a custom Airtable build with 14 automations.
Configured Clay sourcing and Lemlist sequences inside 3 client accounts so their teams could run the motion themselves.
Ran daily operations for a team spread across the US, South Africa, Pakistan and the Philippines. Handled onboarding, training and the SOP database.

ClayInstantlyLemlistHeyReachAirtableZapmail

Former founder available as a live reference.

Jun 2022 — May 2025Islamabad

Project Manager, Digital

DEMO Enterprises · Donor-funded digital programmes

Delivered programmes for the Gates Foundation (WIDEF), Meta, USAID, the British Council and Karandaaz. Payment depended on hitting agreed targets, so KPIs were set before any work began.
Ran digital and social campaigns reaching 12M+ people combined. One Meta programme beat its target of 4M women reached within two months.
Named senior point of contact for Meta, Karandaaz and WIDEF.

Full-time to Feb 2024, then project-based alongside UpHire.

Dec 2020 — Jun 2022Islamabad

Management Associate & Researcher

House of Wellness · Mental health treatment & training centre

Behavioural research and client delivery for the UN Country Team, the British Council and corporate clients, including curricula, marketing campaigns and SOPs.

Jul 2019 — Feb 2020Islamabad

Operations Manager

Multiplex cinema

Ran daily floor operations for 40 staff across seven departments, and presented monthly statistical reports to senior executives.

Feb 2016 — Jan 2019Kentucky · Nevada · Iowa

Automation Engineer I, Rotational Programme

CertainTeed, Saint-Gobain Corporation

Identified about $250k in annual savings through process improvement across US manufacturing lines using PLC, SCADA and HMI systems, including a Raymond Mill heat-loss project worth about $40k a year.
Ran the People Development pillar of World Class Manufacturing at the Carrollton plant.

EarlierUS · Namibia · PK

IT & Business Intern at JPMorgan Chase (Asset Management, New York) · Field Research Associate at the Namibia Tourism Board · Communications Intern at Huawei

Education & credentials

2025

MSc Cyberpsychology

First-Class Honours · IADT, Dublin, Ireland

2016

BS Electrical & Computer Engineering

With Distinction · Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA

2026

Google AI Professional Certificate

Google / Coursera

2022–23

Postgraduate Diploma, Gender Studies

Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad

05Skills & Tools

Capabilities, rated honestly.

C/01

Outbound & pipeline

ICP definition, TAM mapping, segmentation
Job-change, hiring and funding signals
Enrichment waterfalls, verification, dedupe
Sequencing, A/B and variant testing, spintax
Email + LinkedIn + voice-note campaigns

C/02

Deliverability

Domains configured and managed at scale
SPF, DKIM, DMARC
Google Workspace provisioning, warmup, rotation
Placement monitoring and volume ramping
Buy-vs-build calls on infrastructure

C/03

CRM & systems

CRM/ATS migration and rebuild
Data model, lifecycle stages, routing
Automated stage moves and handoffs
Self-serve live dashboards
Data integrity across systems

C/04

Automation & AI

Zapier, Make, native automations
AI qualification and enrichment in Clay
AI for research, copy, docs, workflow design
Prompts and workflows other people run

C/05

Operations & people

Distributed team across 4 time zones
Onboarding, training, SOP systems
Vendor evaluation and cost control
KPI definition and reporting to founders

C/06

Client & stakeholder

Senior point of contact at large institutions
Discovery, scoping, expectation-setting
Escalations and difficult conversations
Configuring Clay and Lemlist in client accounts

TIER_1

Expert, owned in production

Built it, ran it, could rebuild it from scratch.

ClayInstantlyLemlistAirtableDeliverability infrastructure

Clay: waterfalls, AI columns, HTTP/API integrations, scoring, suppression · Airtable: bases, automations, interfaces, live dashboards

TIER_2

Proficient, regular use

Productive without supervision.

ApolloHeyReachSales NavigatorKondoZapmailFindymailProspeoLeadMagicDatagmaContactOutSalesQLZeroBounceNeverBounceRecruiterFlowZapierMakeClaudeChatGPTGeminiPerplexityClaude CodeGoogle Workspace adminNotionSlackClickUpGammaCanva

TIER_3

Familiar, limited use

Hands-on, but not in production.

n8nHubSpotLoxoLinkedIn RecruiterApifyZohoAsanaCalendlyCal.comSQL (dormant)PLC / SCADA / HMI (dormant)

What I don't claim

Named before you find it.

Naming a gap up front has always worked better than hoping nobody notices.

I've never carried a quota and I'm not an AE. I build and run the systems that closers and recruiters work in.
No hands-on Salesforce. About a month of HubSpot, which is working familiarity, not admin level.
Claude Code and n8n are real daily and personal-project use, not production engineering depth.
SQL has been dormant since about 2019 and would need refreshing.
I've managed individuals and trained teams, but I haven't managed managers.

06Blog

My writing and notes.

On GTM, operations, hiring, and the work in between.

Hiring12 Oct 2026· 3 min

Looms.. I can't decide if I like them or hate them

I've recorded 20+ Looms for job applications, and maybe 1 in 15 gets watched. What I've learned from the empty dashboard.

Read →

Systems5 Oct 2026· 3 min

GTM engineering is all about understanding the whys

The how and the what of GTM only hold up when someone has answered the why first.

Read →

Deliverability28 Sep 2026· 2 min

Tracking burned our sending domains. Here's what fixed it.

Open, click and reply tracking were all switched on. What broke, what I changed, and the sending rules I run now.

Read →

Craft21 Sep 2026· 3 min

In the middle of all this AI mess, try to read more

AI is changing how we read. Why I'm protecting slow reading, and the small system that keeps me at it.

Read →

Signals14 Sep 2026· 2 min

Timing beats targeting: the 90-day job-change play

Two Clay tables, one branching Lemlist sequence and a voice note. The campaign that closed two clients within about a month.

Read →

Copy7 Sep 2026· 2 min

What I'd change in a cold sequence that already worked

4% replies and 3 clients in a year. Here's why I'd still rebuild it.

Read →

Career31 Aug 2026· 3 min

My road to GTM engineering

From PLCs in US factories to cinema floors, clinics and programme management, and how it all led to GTM engineering.

Read →

07Downloads

Take the files with you.

NameTypeSize

PDF

saad-riaz-cv.pdfOne-page CV: experience, outcomes, education and stack.

Resume95 KB ↓ Download

DOCX

saad-riaz-outbound-copy-samples.docxThree campaigns' full copy, branching logic and results, plus what I'd change.

Copy samples13 KB ↓ Download

08Contact

Need pipeline built or managed?

Need someone to oversee operations and automate your manual workload?

Available now for full-time (preferred), contract or fractional work. Fully remote from Islamabad, on any time zone.

Emailsriaz725@gmail.com→ LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/iamsaadriaz↗ LoomWatch my intro↗

Roles I fit, in order

GTM Engineer / GTM OpsRevOps / Sales OpsHead of Ops / BizOpsGrowth OpsRecruitment / Talent OpsChief of Staff / Founder's Associate

Best fit

Early-stage and small, where one person can own a whole layer and visibly change how the company runs. I'm comfortable being the first or only hire in a function.