When I hire someone for a lifecycle or CRM role, I have two non-negotiables.

First: experience with any major ESP or CRM platform. Iterable. SFMC. HubSpot. Braze. I genuinely do not care which one. Despite what vendors claim, if you deeply understand one platform, those skills transfer. Data models and UI change, concepts do not.

Second: basic HTML literacy.

I don’t demand mastery or perfection, but I want my new hires to be able to hand-code a simple HTML email from a blank file using a notebook.

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What I Actually Expect (and What I Don’t)

I do not expect:

• Perfect syntax on the doctype tag
• Deep CSS wizardry
• Dark-mode sorcery
• Pixel-perfect rendering across every email client

I do expect:

• Tables instead of divs
• Clean, readable nesting
• An understanding of how email HTML is different from web HTML
• The ability to look at code and reason through what’s broken
• Bonus points if you have usable comments throughout.

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“But We Use Drag-and-Drop Now”

So do I. Drag-and-drop editors are so much better than they were even five years ago and I’ve grown to really enjoy using them.

My team uses AI to help with conditional logic, personalization rules, and even layout experiments. That’s not the issue.

The issue is that drag-and-drop has limits.

Eventually:

• The template won’t support the layout you need
• The editor will introduce unnecessary wrappers
• You’ll need to insert a custom HTML block to get the effect you want

And when that moment comes, someone on the team needs to know what they’re looking at.

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AI Is Helpful. AI Is Also Wrong. A Lot.

AI can:

• Write conditional logic fast
• Scaffold a layout in seconds
• Save time on repetitive patterns

AI can also:

• Close an if statement too early
• Nest tables incorrectly
• Break mobile layouts in subtle ways
• Introduce rendering issues that only show up in Outlook

When that happens, the worst possible position to be in is trying to use AI to bug AI’s own broken code when you don’t understand HTML yourself.

That is how a five-minute fix turns into a long, painful afternoon.

If you can read the code and say:

• “Oh, this table is closing too early”
• “This conditional is wrapping the wrong element”
• “This nesting is why the layout collapses on mobile”

You’re back in control.

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HTML Is Not About Coding. It’s About Thinking.

Basic HTML knowledge isn’t really about code. It’s about:

• Understanding structure
• Spotting patterns
• Debugging logically
• Not being blocked by tooling

Lifecycle marketing lives at the intersection of:

• Data
• Logic
• Messaging
• Execution details

HTML sits right in the middle of that intersection.

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The Bottom Line

Tools change, platforms change, and AI will keep getting better. But the ability to look at a block of HTML (or any code) and understand what’s happening is still one of the most reliable forms of low-hanging fruit in lifecycle marketing.