> Monthly API costs per engineer ranged from $500 to $2,000 as adoption skyrocketed across the company.
That's...not exactly a lot per engineer. It sounds like they just didn't budget correctly. Especially if the net of that work is more features that would have otherwise required hiring more engineers, which would cost a lot more than $500 to $2000 a month.
No, it's really not a lot at all, especially if you've got a mandate to maximize your AI usage, which many engineering orgs have right now. I burned $216 USD using Claude Code in March just doing some casual development on the side and certainly not as a part of any professional workplace mandate.
That's...not exactly a lot per engineer. It sounds like they just didn't budget correctly. Especially if the net of that work is more features that would have otherwise required hiring more engineers, which would cost a lot more than $500 to $2000 a month.