Engineer Onboarding Cost Calculator
What getting a new engineer productive costs, in BLS pay and your own onboarding plan
1. Pay
2. Your onboarding plan
Result
| One new engineer | USD |
|---|---|
| The new engineer's onboarding hours | $4,070 |
| Time of the people who help | $2,442 |
| Reduced output while ramping up | $13,024 |
| Equipment and licences | $0.00 |
Onboarding hours count as fully lost time and the ramp-up weeks come after them, so no hour is counted twice. Replacing someone who left? See the full bill, with recruiting and cover, in the employee turnover cost calculator. Estimate how long the seat stays empty with the time to fill calculator and the recruiting spend with the cost per hire calculator.
The formulas
Loaded pay per hour = annual pay x (1 + benefits %) / 2,080 Loaded pay per week = annual pay x (1 + benefits %) / 52 Engineer's hours = onboarding hours x loaded pay per hour Helpers' time = people who help x hours each x their loaded pay per hour Reduced output = ramp-up weeks x output lost % x loaded pay per week Cost per engineer = engineer's hours + helpers' time + reduced output + equipment and licences Cost per year = cost per engineer x engineers onboarded per year
How this works
Pay starts from US Bureau of Labor Statistics data (OEWS, May 2025): software developers (15-1252) at a mean of $148,100 a year, or computer and information research scientists (15-1221) at $153,930. Benefits default to 42.9%, the BLS private-industry average for June 2026. Every hour is priced at that loaded pay, using the 2,080-hour year that BLS uses to convert hourly wages to yearly pay.
The tool does not use a rule such as "a new hire takes six months to ramp up". The onboarding hours, the number of helpers, the ramp-up weeks and the output lost are placeholders that you replace. The new engineer's onboarding hours count as fully lost time, and the ramp-up weeks come after them.
Worked example with the defaults: loaded pay is $148,100 x 1.429 = $211,634.90, or $101.75 an hour. The new engineer's 40 hours cost $4,069.90. Three helpers at 8 hours each cost $2,441.94. Eight weeks at 40% lost output cost 8 x 40% x $211,634.90 / 52 = $13,023.69. One engineer costs $19,535.53, so four a year cost $78,142.12.
Sources (read November 12, 2026)
AY Automate says it places an engineer "from our own bench, already trained on agent tooling, with no recruitment fee and a 90-day replacement guarantee." Your onboarding time may still differ. See engineer placement.
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