Tom Kenaley
By Tom Kenaley, President & Senior Partner, KORE1 The Workday consultant interview questions that predict a strong hire in 2026 test configuration judgment under pressure, not memorized terminology. Hand a candidate a business process that routes to the wrong approver and watch them reason toward the fix. Ask why an integration failed overnight with payroll … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 In 2026, U.S. penetration testers earn a median base near $130,000, with most offers landing between $95,000 and $180,000, and senior red-team operators who can prove real exploitation clearing $200,000 in total pay. One job title, and hiding under it a pay range that would make your … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 In 2026, U.S. Kubernetes engineers earn a median base near $140,000, with most offers landing between $115,000 and $195,000, and senior platform specialists who run production clusters clearing $230,000 and up in total pay. One title, and underneath it a pay gap wide enough to drive a … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, President & Senior Partner, KORE1 Build a data team in hiring order: start with one analyst or analytics engineer to make your existing data usable, add a data engineer when pipelines break, and hire a data scientist only after you have clean data. A dedicated data leader comes around four to six … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, President & Senior Partner, KORE1 The AI engineer career path climbs from junior at zero to two years ($110,000 to $145,000 base) through mid and senior, then splits into a staff or principal track and an engineering-management track, with senior base pay reaching $290,000. What sets it apart from the machine learning … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 Hiring a Salesforce architect in 2026 means paying $150,000 to $260,000 for a senior, deciding first whether you need a technical or a functional architect, and screening hard for the discipline to tell the platform no. A focused search closes in three to six weeks. Most drag … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 A data scientist finds what your data can tell you. An ML engineer makes that finding run in production at scale. One hands back insight and a prototype model, the other ships a system that stays accurate under real traffic. Both write Python. Same language, sure. Only … Read more
How Long Does It Take to Hire a Product Manager in 2026? Hiring a product manager in 2026 takes about 7 to 11 weeks through an internal search and 3 to 5 weeks through a specialized agency, with seniority, product surface, and interview-loop length driving most of the spread. Generalist and mid-level roles close faster. … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 Hiring a cloud security engineer in 2026 means budgeting roughly $130,000 to $215,000 base for mid-to-senior talent, naming your primary cloud before you post, and expecting a two-to-four-week search in a market where almost none of these people are unemployed. The money is the part everyone fixates … Read more
How Long Does It Take to Hire a Data Scientist in 2026? Hiring a data scientist takes about 7 to 12 weeks through an internal search in 2026, and 4 to 6 weeks through a specialized agency, with production requirements and seniority driving most of the spread. Applied and analytics roles close faster because the … Read more
