Field notes
Insights on technical hiring.
Field notes on hiring scarce technical talent — compensation, recruiting models, and how to reach the engineers who aren’t looking.
Subscribe via RSS- Executive Search
How to Hire Executives: Running a VP and C-Level Search That Actually Sticks
An executive hire is the highest-leverage and highest-risk decision a company makes. The wrong VP sets a team back a year; the right one compounds for years. Here is how to run a senior search deliberately — and why the usual hiring playbook breaks at this level.
- Product Leadership
How to Hire Product Leaders: Staff PMs, Principal Designers, and Directors of Product
Senior product roles are where hiring goes wrong quietly. The résumés all look strong, everyone interviews well, and the gap between a good staff PM and a great one is almost invisible until the work ships. Here is how to hire product leaders on judgment, not polish.
- Compensation
Cleared & Defense AI/ML Engineer Salary Guide (DC & Northern Virginia, 2026)
Clearance level, not just seniority, is the single biggest multiplier on engineering compensation in the DC market. Here is how the numbers break down in 2026 — and why the posted salary band is almost never the real one.
- Hiring Strategy
Retained vs. Contingency vs. Embedded Recruiting: Which Model Should You Use?
Most hiring teams choose a recruiting model by habit or by whoever emailed them last. The three models solve genuinely different problems. Here is a straight comparison and a simple way to pick.
- Technical Hiring
How to Hire FPGA Engineers (When Almost None of Them Are Looking)
FPGA engineering is one of the tightest talent markets in tech: a small population, deeply specialized, and almost entirely passive. A job posting will not reach them. Here is what works instead.