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 Mike Carter To hire a CISO in 2026, decide what the seat actually owns before you open the search, budget $250,000 to $700,000 in total compensation, and plan eight to twelve weeks for a real executive search. The role carries personal legal exposure now, so the offer has to account for that, and the … 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
A data team is structured around four jobs done in order: move the data, model it, analyze it, and govern it, with a single leader owning all four. Most orgs start with one data engineer and add specialists only as the work earns them. That sentence took me fifteen years on a recruiting desk to … Read more
A build vs buy framework is a short, repeatable test for deciding whether to build a capability in-house or rent it from a vendor. Mine runs on five numbers. If your team cannot put those numbers on the table, you are not ready to make the call yet. A few years back I sat in … Read more
Engineering career progression runs through three stages, Builder, Leader, and Advisor, and your authority compounds across them instead of replacing them. You earn the right to lead by building first, and the right to advise by staying close enough to the build that nobody can sell you a story you can’t check. A senior engineer … Read more
Hiring an engineering manager in 2026 means deciding which tier you actually need (first-line, second-line, or director), then testing for management judgment that barely shows up on a resume, with most well-scoped searches closing in six to ten weeks. Get the tier right and the search is ordinary. Get it wrong and you pay director … 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
Pricing the rest of the product ladder? The rungs below this seat live in our group product manager salary guide and senior product manager salary guide. The seat above it is the chief product officer salary guide for 2026. VP Product Salary Guide 2026 By Robert Ardell A vice president of product in the United … Read more
