I hope you understand you’re very alone In a crowd of sane people if you want to say that your engineers are happy in a $300 chair. A steel case or Herman miller is tablestakes for a decent software shop and if you’re too ignorant or miserly to see it then it’s probably not a great place to work at. A good chair makes a huge difference for ones quality of life. Please don’t skimp on it.
I tend to find that the essentials in a chair are the mesh back, the rest is just extra features.
And yeah good mesh back chairs come in at about $300 wholesale.
I find often that the ones available retail are not as good as the ones my big-ass corporation buys though, because furniture has a huge retail markup.
I have an Aeron, Embody, and Gesture. Yet, some of the $300-$400 mesh chairs at Staples feel better. Downside is I’ve never had one of those chairs last longer than 2-3 years before the mesh loosened up more than I’d like, but while they are good they are the best I’ve tried.
