{
  "video_id": "reddit_1tokje7",
  "channel_slug": "ClaudeAI",
  "channel_handle": "r/ClaudeAI",
  "title": "My company started measuring our Claude Code usage - now I'm asked to rank engineers on 'AI performance.' This feels wrong...",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1tokje7/my_company_started_measuring_our_claude_code/",
  "external_url": null,
  "upload_date": "20260526",
  "published_at": "2026-05-26T21:16:20+00:00",
  "transcript": "My company started tracking Claude Code usage - tokens and spend, that kind of thing. Now my manager wants me to stack-rank my engineers on \"AI performance\" using those numbers.\n\nI'm not comfortable with it (but I don't have a choice either). Token usage feels like exactly the wrong proxy - my strongest engineer uses Claude surgically while someone burning 10x the tokens isn't 10x more productive (often the opposite). Ranking on this just teaches people to game the metric.\n\nSo, for folks here who use Claude daily and/or lead teams:\n\n* Has your company started measuring \"AI performance\"? How are they doing it?\n* Is there any Claude/AI usage metric that actually tracks with good work, instead of just rewarding the heaviest users?\n* If you're a lead being pushed to measure this, how do you push back without flat-out refusing?\n\n\n\n--- Top Comments ---\n\n\n[1 upvotes] **TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 40 comments.**\n\n**The overwhelming consensus is that your manager is asking the wrong question and using a terrible metric.** Ranking engineers by token usage is the new \"measuring productivity by lines of code\"—a dumb, easily-gamed idea that the community is roasting.\n\nMost users agree with you, OP: high token usage often signals *inefficiency*, not productivity. Your best engineers are likely surgical and use fewer tokens, while others might be burning cash because they don't know how to prompt effectively. As one user put it, you're being asked to reward people for wasting company money.\n\nThe general feeling is that your boss is actually trying to answer one of two questions:\n1.  **Are we getting ROI on our massive AI spend?**\n2.  **Who isn't using the tools at all and falling behind?**\n\nThe advice from the thread is to push back, but constructively. Don't just say no. Reframe the conversation around what they *really* want to measure. Suggest better, more qualitative metrics like having engineers demo their most impactful AI-assisted work, or tracking the *outcomes* (like increased ticket velocity or higher quality PRs) in\n\n[69 upvotes] You're being asked the wrong question and you know you're being asked the wrong question. As you're clearly in a position of leadership, part of your job is push back and insulate your teams from ignorant things from on high. Either go back and ask whoever is asking this to clarify what it is they want to know, or just straight up ask them \"Do you want to know who \\*I\\* think is using AI the most efficiently?\".\n\nThis is no different than tech ignorant leaders wanting to measure by lines coded, commits made, or PRs reviewed. They all can be a measure of work, but in a vacuum they are meaningless and many other things need to be taken into consideration.\n\n[19 upvotes] I found a video of your company [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/phwq5hZZwDU](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/phwq5hZZwDU)   \n  \nI am able to pull the numbers for my team but I only use it as a yes/no check to see if they are using it. As soon as you make token usage a goal people will waste money. If I do see unusually high usage it actually makes me think the person is not very efficient. You need to give your boss some facts. \n\n[11 upvotes] It’s really impossible to use total token usage. What are you auditing? People total usage of AI? Usage for non-work related items? Without a proxy to understand the requests, you can’t do much.\n\nThe guy with the most token usage could be the least efficient one for all you know. 🤷🏼‍♂️ \n\n[9 upvotes] I think they want to weed out people who can’t/won’t use AI no matter what - which is undesirable because in the right hands AI is an absolute game changer. I certainly hope they are not rewarding people for using too much. For people in the team it’s very obvious who is using AI right and who is using it wrong. You should ask your team instead of trying to find an arbitrary measurement. People who use AI well = good. People who use AI but are not more productive, or even worse, producing slop that needs to be reviewed by seniors = bad. People who flat out refuse to use AI = bad.",
  "transcript_chars": 4096,
  "ingested_at": "2026-05-27T01:30:32.288042+00:00",
  "source": "reddit",
  "yt_meta": {
    "score": 56,
    "upvote_ratio": 0.93,
    "num_comments": 61,
    "author": "darren_eng",
    "is_self": true
  }
}