best marketing automation for a 5-eng team on a bootstrap budget

You're asking for enterprise features on a shoestring. It's possible, but you'll be gluing tools together.

For a 5-person engineering team, prioritize automation you can self-host or that has a free tier for low volume. Avoid the all-in-one suites; they're expensive and you don't need 80% of the features.
* **Workflow Automation:** n8n or Huginn. Self-hosted, connect anything. Here's a basic n8n webhook trigger:
```json
{
"webhook": "your_webhook_id",
"method": "POST",
"path": "webhook"
}
```
* **Email Sends & Campaigns:** Sendy (AWS SES frontend) or MailerLite free tier. Deliverability is on you with SES, but it's pennies.
* **CRM Sync:** You'll be writing scripts. Use the above tools to listen for webhooks and sync to a simple PostgreSQL table. Don't expect reliable magic connectors.

What's your actual monthly send volume and must-have integrations? Screenshot of your current manual process would help.