Tom Kenaley
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 Hiring a BI developer in 2026 costs $110,000 to $190,000 depending on seniority, and most searches close in three to six weeks once you decide whether you need a dashboard builder or the data modeler underneath the dashboard. That one decision moves the salary, the candidate pool, … Read more
The strongest BI developer interview questions in 2026 measure five skills, SQL and data modeling, semantic-layer and DAX judgment, ETL and data prep, report performance and governance, and whether someone turns a vague business ask into a number people trust. Most loops quiz tool trivia a candidate can look up in a browser tab and … Read more
Strong Snowflake engineer interview questions in 2026 test five things: SQL and modeling, warehouse sizing and cost control, loading and pipeline design, governance and secure data sharing, and the judgment to know when Snowflake is the wrong tool. Most loops drill SQL syntax a candidate can look up and never once ask about the monthly … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President at KORE1 A CFO earns $250,000 to $450,000 in base salary in 2026 at most private and mid-market companies, with total compensation of $400,000 to $900,000 once bonus and equity stack, and far higher at public companies. The base reads simple enough. The total does not. Two CFOs … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Senior Partner and President, KORE1 To hire a VP of Product in 2026, scope the seat against your stage, budget $215,000 to $285,000 in base salary plus equity, run a judgment-based interview loop, and check references hard. Most product-leadership searches take eight to fourteen weeks once the role is scoped right. The … Read more
Pricing the rest of the product ladder? The rung below this seat is in our group product manager salary guide, and the seat above it is the VP product salary guide for 2026. This page is about the director number, and why the hiring manager and finance keep walking in with two of them. Director … Read more
By Tom Kenaley The data engineer career path runs from junior at zero to two years, then mid-level, then senior, before it forks into two tracks: staff or principal on the technical side, or manager and architect on the leadership side. Base pay climbs from roughly $80,000 to past $220,000 along the way. That fork … Read more
Price most engineers by what they cost you. Price a security engineer by what the empty chair costs you. Different math. Hiring a cybersecurity engineer in the U.S. runs roughly $165,000 to $320,000 in the first year, once you add fully loaded pay, recruiting or agency fees, the cost of the seat sitting open, and … Read more
The AI product manager career path runs from associate PM to AI PM, then senior, staff or principal, and on to director, usually across eight to twelve years. The jump into AI rarely turns on how long you have carried the title. It turns on whether you can read a model evaluation and decide if … Read more
Staff Engineer Salary Guide 2026 By Tom Kenaley Staff engineers in the United States earn $190,000 to $260,000 base in 2026, with total compensation reaching $350,000 to $700,000 at large technology employers once equity and bonus stack on top. It is the first rung where pay stops tracking how fast you write code and starts … Read more
