Extend, Convert, or Release: How to Decide When a Contract Ends

Hiring manager and contract engineer walking down an office corridor while discussing whether to extend his contract

By Tom Kenaley, President and Senior Partner, KORE1 Extend a contractor’s contract when the work continues but conversion is blocked, convert when the work is permanent and you’d rehire the person tomorrow, and release them once either the work or the fit has run out. Two facts settle nearly every contractor contract extension question. Both … Read more

Hiring After Layoffs: Why Companies Rebuild With Contract Talent First

Hiring manager and colleague discussing a contract-first rebuild plan after layoffs on an office staircase

By Mike Carter, Managing Director, KORE1 Most companies hiring after layoffs rebuild with contract talent first, because contractors restore capacity in weeks without betting a permanent headcount line on demand that hasn’t proven itself yet. Permanent reqs come back later, once the work has shown up two quarters in a row. Run in that order, … Read more

How to Interview Contract Developers & Engineers

Hiring manager interviewing a contract software developer in a quiet office seating area

By Jennifer Burdick, Recruiting Manager, KORE1 To interview contract developers and engineers, build a short process around the statement of work and use it to answer one question, whether this person can deliver that scope in your environment starting in week one. Two conversations usually settle it, a technical discussion with the engineer they will … Read more

Generative AI Engineer Job Description Template 2026

Two technology hiring professionals talking beside a window in a modern office lounge with an orange accent wall

By Tom Kenaley, President and Senior Partner, KORE1 A generative AI engineer job description covers an engineer who builds product features on foundation models like GPT, Claude, and Gemini, owning retrieval, evaluation, guardrails, and inference cost, usually without training a model from scratch. Most postings under that title in 2026 describe somebody else. The template … Read more

Splunk Engineer Interview Questions 2026

Confident Splunk engineer candidate standing in a modern tech office hallway with orange accent walls before a job interview

By Mike Carter, Director of Partnership Success, KORE1 Splunk engineer interviews in 2026 should test licensing judgment, data onboarding decisions, and how a candidate diagnoses a broken search, not SPL syntax anyone can memorize from a certification guide. The title gets used for three different jobs, and most interview loops only screen for one of … Read more

How to Hire a Splunk Engineer: 2026 Guide

Cybersecurity engineer reviewing SIEM dashboards at a workstation with orange accent lighting

By Tom Kenaley, President and Senior Partner, KORE1 Hiring a Splunk engineer means picking one of three different jobs first, security engineer, observability engineer, or platform admin, because pay bands swing from roughly $99,000 to $153,000 depending on which one you actually post. That’s before certifications, before SPL fluency, before any of it. Get the … Read more