Tom Kenaley
By Tom Kenaley Hiring a prompt engineer in 2026 means accepting the title has split into four working jobs (LLM application engineer with prompt depth, eval and red-team engineer, agent and tool-use designer, or prompt-ops generalist for non-engineering teams), budgeting $130K to $185K mid-level and $200K to $290K senior, and running a four-round loop that … Read more
By Tom Kenaley Hiring a CTO in 2026 means picking the right archetype for your stage (founder-coder, architect, scaling platform, or strategist), setting a band of $260K to $400K base for a Series B through C full-time CTO, and running a six-step search that grades technical strategy, leadership, and the ability to say no to … Read more
If you are opening a Senior PM req, our full 2026 hiring playbook walks the five-level ladder, the JD filter, and the four-round interview loop: how to hire a product manager in 2026. Senior Product Manager Salary Guide 2026 By Tom Kenaley Senior product managers in the United States earn $165,000 to $245,000 base in … Read more
By Tom Kenaley To hire a technical product manager (TPM) in 2026, scope the role by who pays when the call is wrong (internal engineers vs external users), set a comp band of $145K to $215K for mid-level and $210K to $310K for senior, and run a four-round loop that grades system-design judgment, prioritization under … Read more
By Tom Kenaley The all-in cost to hire a React developer in 2026 lands $145,000 to $260,000 for a mid-to-senior US hire once base salary, payroll tax, benefits load, equipment, recruiting fees, and onboarding ramp are stacked. Direct-hire agency fees run 20 to 25 percent of first-year base. KORE1’s average React fill closes in 17 … Read more
Chief Data Officer Salary Guide 2026 By Tom Kenaley Chief Data Officers in the United States earn a base of $172,000 to $325,000 in 2026, with total compensation reaching $750,000 to $1.6M at Fortune 500 and regulated-industry employers once bonus, long-term incentive plans, and equity refresh stack on top. The published medians are the easy … Read more
By Tom Kenaley Recession-proof tech jobs in 2026 cluster in five buckets: cybersecurity, healthcare IT, government and defense systems, FinOps and cloud cost engineering, and mission-critical data roles. They hold through downturns because the work cannot be paused without legal or revenue consequence. That sentence does a lot of work, so it deserves the rest … Read more
Contingency vs Retainer vs Engaged Search: Which Is Right for You? By Tom Kenaley Contingency search costs 15 to 25 percent of first-year base and pays only on placement, retained search runs 30 to 35 percent of first-year total comp with a third paid upfront, and engaged search splits the difference with a smaller upfront … Read more
AMD Layoffs 2026: Where Semiconductor Talent Is Going AMD ran a single ~1,000-person reduction in late 2024 (about 4 percent of a 26,000-person base) and has been net-hiring engineering talent through 2026, with the larger semiconductor layoff story belonging to Intel (25,000+ positions cut), VMware-Broadcom, and the Confluent and Snowflake data-platform reset. The small AMD … Read more
By Tom Kenaley Computer vision engineers in 2026 cost $145K to $190K mid-level and $200K to $275K senior in the United States, with autonomous-driving perception and medical-imaging FDA specialists clearing $290K to $410K total comp, and most well-scoped searches closing in 4 to 9 weeks. The discipline is six different careers wearing the same job … Read more
