First-year cost of a QA hire

The first-year cost of a QA hire is the annual cost with recruiting and onboarding ramp charged in full instead of spread over the expected tenure. Both items are one-off costs paid at the start of employment, so the first year carries all of them. The annual figure on this site spreads them over 2.5 years, which is why the first-year figure is the larger of the two.

Two totals from the same inputs

The published formula produces both totals from the same lines:

• total_annual_cost adds the yearly share of recruiting and ramp, each divided by the expected tenure of 2.5 years;
• first_year_cost removes those yearly shares and adds the full recruiting cost and the full ramp cost instead.

Every other line, salary, contributions, mandatory and voluntary benefits, and equipment, is the same in both totals. The full formula is on the formula page.

Worked example

Recruiting in the first year

The recruiting cost is the agency fee percentage, applied to the base salary; the dataset has one global percentage, used in every region. It is paid once, when the hire is made. In an average year over a 2.5-year tenure, the employer carries two fifths of it; in the first year, all of it. The recruiting fees guide covers how the percentage is sourced.

A hire made without an agency does not pay that fee, but it carries internal recruiting time, job board costs and interview hours. The dataset does not estimate those items, so the recruiting line on each breakdown page is the agency-fee case.

Ramp in the first year

Ramp (the weeks before a new hire works at full productivity) is valued as the weekly cost of salary, contributions and mandatory benefits, times the ramp weeks for the level, times the share of output not delivered. The formula defaults are 10 weeks for a junior, 6 for a mid-level and 4 for a senior hire, at a productivity factor of 0.5. Ramp happens once, in the first months, so the first year carries all of it.

When the annual figure applies

The annual figure is an average over the expected tenure. It is the figure to compare across countries, roles and hiring models, because it treats one-off costs the same way for each. The first-year figure is the figure for the year the hire starts. If a hire stays longer than 2.5 years, the true average year sits below the annual figure; if shorter, above it. The bad hire guide covers the short-tenure case.

Other models

For a contractor, recruiting and ramp are treated as for an employee, so a first-year difference exists there too. For an outsourced team the formula includes no recruiting and no ramp, so the first year and the average year are the same. The model pages explain what each model includes: contractor and outsourced.

Related pages

• Formula
• Calculator
• Employee model
• Onboarding ramp cost