Practical guidance for employers hiring engineers — from writing effective job descriptions and screening technical candidates to structuring competitive offers and onboarding engineering talent successfully.
By Devin Hornick, Co-Founder and Partner, KORE1 Engineering reqs usually sit open because the company hasn’t finished deciding, not because candidates are missing: scope keeps changing, approvals stall, and the interview loop has no clear owner. While that decision gets made, a contractor can keep the work moving. KORE1 contractors start a median of 3 … Read more
By Robert Ardell, Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor, KORE1 EA is closing BioWare and cutting about 400 jobs, roughly 3 percent of the company, according to Bloomberg, with around 50 of those roles at BioWare itself. The next Mass Effect, still in early development, goes with it. For a hiring manager the number that matters is … Read more
A mid-level contract mechanical, electrical, or manufacturing engineer bills about $75 to $94 an hour nationally in 2026. Bill rates by level and metro from the KORE1 Contract Rate Index.
By Mike Carter, Managing Director, KORE1 Microsoft Maia 300 is Microsoft’s third in-house AI inference chip, due in production in 2027, and it pits Microsoft against Google, Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI for the same small pool of custom-silicon engineers. Microsoft unveiled it on October 12, 2026. The design is done. The fight for the people … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, Co-Founder and President, KORE1 Netflix has not confirmed any layoffs, but Puck reported on October 9, 2026, that the company plans to cut about 5 percent of staff, roughly 800 of its 16,000 full-time employees, possibly before October 20 earnings. Netflix declined to comment. Nobody has said which teams. For a hiring … Read more
By Jennifer Burdick, Recruiting Manager, KORE1 A mechanical engineer job description should state how the parts are made and in what volume, which code or quality system governs the work, what the release package contains, any export-control limit, and a base range of $84,000 to $145,000. That range covers mid-level through senior engineers in 2026. … Read more
By Mike Carter, Managing Director, KORE1 Strong mechanical engineer interview questions in 2026 have a candidate work a number by hand, read a part that already failed, and defend a material or tolerance call under cost pressure. Definitions of stress, strain, and Young’s modulus tell you who passed Statics. They don’t tell you who you’d … Read more
By Mike Carter, Managing Director, KORE1 DHS has proposed charging schools $70,000 the first time they recommend an F-1 student for Optional Practical Training, plus $30,000 for each later recommendation. Nothing is in effect. Comments close November 9, 2026. That is the whole mechanism, and it is worth reading twice, because almost every headline about … Read more
By Tom Kenaley, President and Senior Partner, KORE1 A firmware engineer job description should name the silicon, the RTOS, where the product sits in its life, who owns the bootloader and the update path, the memory and power budget, and a published pay range. Most postings name the first two and stop. That is why … Read more
The best embedded and firmware staffing agencies in 2026 are KORE1, PRA USA, SPECTRAFORCE, Protingent, Actalent, Net2Source, and EV.Careers, ranked by the Placement Authority Score across firmware-specific recruiter depth, vertical industry coverage, screening methodology, and engagement flexibility. KORE1 ranks first for its combination of active firmware and embedded engineering bench, W-2 staffing model, 92% twelve … Read more
