By Mike Carter, Managing Director, KORE1 Plan 2027 headcount at a higher hurdle rate, because the Fed raised its target range to 3.75 to 4 percent in September and most FOMC participants expect another increase by year end. Investment-grade borrowing costs now run 5.99 percent, up 121 basis points in a year. The practical effect … Read more
Build an IT roadmap with no CIO by starting from the dates you do not control. Four quarters, one page, and a clear split between the lines that need a fractional CIO and the lines that need contract project staff.
AI readiness is whether a firm’s important work survives without the colleague everyone asks where the data is. It is built in records, written rules and named owners, not bought.
By Kris Drouet, Engineering Executive, in partnership with KORE1 Post-acquisition engineering integration works when you merge how decisions get made before you merge code or org charts, which means one definition of done, one written priority list, and one named venue for cross-team calls within 100 days. The repositories can wait a year. The engineers … Read more
By Jennifer Burdick, Recruiting Manager, KORE1 A director of product job description should state the team size, the decisions the director owns, what the roadmap already promises, the reporting line, and a base range, typically $195,000 to $325,000 in 2026. Most postings describe a senior product manager and add a sentence about leading a team. … Read more
By Devin Hornick, Co-Founder and Partner, KORE1 The best fractional head of AI firms in 2026 are KORE1, Go Fractional, Toptal, Fractionus, Iternal AI, Prime AI Solutions, and Fast Data Science, ranked by the Placement Authority Score across AI domain depth, engagement model flexibility, pricing transparency, and fractional-to-permanent conversion capability. KORE1 ranks first because it … Read more
By Kris Drouet, Engineering Executive, in partnership with KORE1 Integrating contract engineers without a two-tier culture means assigning decisions by the work, not the badge, so contractors own the reversible, local calls in their area while one-way doors go to whoever will still be there when the consequences land. Every other difference between the two … Read more
By Mike Carter, Managing Director, KORE1 Strong director of product interview questions in 2026 test how a candidate splits a fixed engineering budget, what their org stopped building, and how they develop PMs, rather than whether they can design a product on a whiteboard. Product sense still matters at this level. It’s just the price … Read more
By Mike Carter, Managing Director, KORE1 A COO job description should list the functions moving to the seat, the three or four operating numbers it will be judged on, and the dollar amounts it can approve without the CEO. On our searches a private or mid-market COO’s base falls between $175,000 and $400,000, and bonus … Read more
By Jennifer Burdick, Recruiting Manager, KORE1 A controller job description should state how many entities the books cover, whether the statements are compiled, reviewed, or audited, the close target, the ERP, the team size, what the controller signs, and the pay range. Base pay for most controller seats runs from $115,000 to $235,000 in 2026, … Read more
