free tools · engineering edition
Cost of a Bad Engineering Hire Calculator
Generic HR calculators lowball engineers. This one prices in senior-engineer interview hours, team drag and the cost of restarting the search — for the US and India.
Salary defaults & benchmarks tuned for US engineering pay
the hire
Advanced assumptions+
what this bad hire cost you
live estimateGeneric averages stop here. Engineering runs far higher — the breakdown below shows why.
the breakdown
Eight line items. Expand any one for its formula.
Five direct costs are cash out the door — the indisputable floor. Three hidden costs are defensible and sourced in the methodology below.
Wasted compensation$68,250+
Loaded pay for every month they under-delivered.
42.2% of total
Recruiting$5,000+
What it cost to source this hire the first time.
3.1% of total
Engineering interview time$3,019+
Senior engineers pulled off delivery to run the loop — the line generic calculators skip.
1.9% of total
Onboarding & ramp$9,825+
Equipment, licenses, plus a mentor's first-3-months time.
6.1% of total
Severance$15,167+
Notice pay on the way out.
9.4% of total
Team drag$18,200+
Reviews, rework and blocked teammates. A bad senior poisons more of the team.
11.3% of total
Management overhead$11,375+
1:1s, feedback cycles, PIP and HR — a manager's time, not just yours.
7.0% of total
Re-hire restart$30,769+
The seat sits empty, then you pay to recruit and interview all over again.
19.0% of total
The hidden three are where engineering diverges from a generic HR calculator. Every one is defended in the methodology with a named source.
Bad hires get through unstructured screens.
See what a rigorous, cheat-proof technical screen looks like — evidence-scored, calibrated to your bar, done in minutes. It's the cheapest line in the whole model above.
methodology
Every formula, written out — with sources.
Let S = annual base salary, L = benefits/overhead load factor, T = tenure in months, P= share of a solid engineer's output delivered. Monthly loaded cost M = S · L / 12. All figures compute client-side; nothing is sent anywhere.
Direct costs — the floor
1 · Wasted compensation
M · T · (1 − P)
You pay the full loaded cost; you receive fraction P of a solid engineer's output.
2 · Recruiting
agency 20%·S · internal flat · founder 15h·rate
Agency fees run 15–25% of first-year salary; we use 20% as the midpoint.
3 · Engineering interview time
H · (S · 1.15 · L / 2080)
Interviewers are typically one level senior to the seat (the 1.15×) across a 2,080-hour work year. The line no generic calculator has.
4 · Onboarding & ramp
setup flat + 0.15 · M · min(T, 3)
Equipment and licensing plus a mentor spending ~15% of their time for up to three months.
5 · Severance
sevMonths · M
Notice or separation pay, defaulted to one month.
Hidden costs — defensible
6 · Team drag
drag% · (teamSize − 1) · M · T
Reviews, rework and blocked teammates. Drag% rises with seniority — Junior 3%, Mid 5%, Senior 8%, Staff 10% — because a weak senior poisons architecture and reviews for everyone.
7 · Management overhead
0.20 · (M · 1.25) · max(2, T/2)
A manager (≈1.25× the role's cost) spends ~20% of their time on feedback cycles, a PIP and HR process — for at least two months.
8 · Re-hire restart
(backfill · M · 0.5) + recruiting + interview
A vacant seat delays the roadmap (conservatively valued at 50% of loaded cost per month), then you pay recruiting and interview hours all over again.
Headline = a range. Direct-only is the floor; direct + hidden is the likely figure. For the default mid-level scenario this lands near 1.1–1.2× annual salary — squarely inside the widely cited 30%–200% band.
market constants
| Default | US ($) | India (₹) |
|---|---|---|
| Mid base salary | 140,000 | 18,00,000 |
| Internal recruiter flat | 5,000 | 2,00,000 |
| Founder hourly | 150 | 2,000 |
| Onboarding setup flat | 3,000 | 1,20,000 |
| AI screen price | 12 | 900 |
Load factor, interview hours, drag% and output share are identical across markets — only currency and cash constants change.
sources & anchors
US Department of Labor— widely cited for the estimate that a bad hire costs at least 30% of the employee's first-year earnings. We compute this on your salary as a benchmark.
CareerBuilder — surveyed employers reporting an average cost near $17,000 per bad hire across all roles; engineering runs well above this all-roles average.
SHRM & Gallup— turnover and replacement cost commonly estimated at 0.5×–2× annual salary depending on role complexity, which brackets this model's output.
Figures are industry anchors for orientation, not guarantees; adjust the advanced assumptions to match your own data.
typical cost by seniority
What a bad engineering hire runs, by level
Same scenario across levels — 6 months tenure, 25% output, team of 5, internal recruiter — priced for the United States. Switch the market tab above to reprice in ₹.
| Seniority | Base salary | Cost range (floor → likely) | × salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junior | $100,000 | $73,896 – $112,508 | 1.1× |
| Mid | $140,000 | $101,260 – $161,604 | 1.2× |
| Senior | $180,000 | $129,200 – $220,690 | 1.2× |
| Staff+ | $220,000 | $157,715 – $281,446 | 1.3× |
how to prevent it
The cheapest line in the model is a better screen
Calibrate to a real bar
Score against the same rubric your best engineers already use, not a vibe. Consistency is what stops false positives.
Probe reasoning live
Take-homes measure who has time and help. A live round that cross-questions decisions surfaces depth a polished submission hides.
Make it structured & cheat-proof
An AI interviewer that probes like your best engineer — evidence-scored and cheat-resistant — keeps weak candidates off your team's calendars entirely.
See how it works →faq
Cost of a bad hire, answered
How much does a bad hire cost?+
What's the 30% rule?+
Why are engineering bad hires more expensive?+
How do you calculate the cost of a bad hire?+
Does this work for the Indian market?+
How do you prevent bad engineering hires?+
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Cost of a bad engineering hire
The true, engineering-specific cost — wasted comp, senior-engineer interview hours, team drag, management overhead and the cost of restarting the search. US & India.
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The SHRM formula plus the line it omits — your engineers' time. Surfaces engineer-hours per hire as its own headline stat.