Hey everyone, been lurking and learning a lot here. I'm trying to build a case for some AI coding tools at my company, like GitHub Copilot.
I can see it saves me time, but my manager asks for a real dollar ROI. How do you actually translate "I coded this faster" into a number finance people will accept?
For example, if it saves 5 hours a week for a dev, is it just (hourly rate * hours saved)? That seems too simple. What about the cost of the tool itself, or time to learn it? Do you factor in things like fewer bugs meaning less support cost later?
Any frameworks or spreadsheets you've used would be super helpful. 😅
Oh yeah, the "hourly rate * hours saved" trap. I'm trying to do this same math for some automation scripts, and it feels shaky. What about the time you spend reviewing and fixing the AI's suggestions? That can eat into the saved hours.
Also, if it helps you write cleaner code or better comments the first time, maybe there's a downstream benefit for your team during code reviews or onboarding? Hard to put a number on that though.