PwC Elevates Engineer Roles as AI Dominates Big Four Agenda (1)

PwC said Wednesday that it will create a formal career track for its growing pool of engineers, data scientists, and software developers in a bid to better compete for a group of in-demand professionals in the AI era.

The effort will set out a specialized career progression from intern to partner that parallels pathways in place for the firm’s ranks of tax lawyers, consultants, and auditors. Firm leaders aim to attract specialists needed to build AI products and services driving revenue across its businesses.

“We’re absolutely in the hiring mode at PwC,” Paul Griggs, PwC US senior partner, told Bloomberg Tax in an interview. “At the same time, I have a real charge to our businesses that we have to radically transform everything we do in an AI-first mentality.”

Since taking the helm of the global network’s US arm, Griggs has pledged to reinvent the 80,000-person firm to make use of artificial intelligence and to break through barriers to “progress.”

He has steered a restructuring of the firm’s operations that expanded the number of consulting divisions and paired technology staff with front-line professionals. The firm also has cut nearly 3,450 staff in three rounds of layoffs since 2024.

Engineering Expansion

Engineers have increasingly joined the ranks of professional services firms to work alongside business consultants and accountants since before the global Covid-19 pandemic. A quarter of accounting firm hires in 2024 earned degrees other than accounting, according to a survey by the American Institute of CPAs.

PwC’s engineering staff is expected to grow with roles needed to support cloud computing and cybersecurity, said Matt Hobbs, who leads the US firm’s cloud, engineering, data, and AI platform.

But the advent of advanced AI requires additional people with specialized skills to support PwC’s efforts to transform how it serves clients, Hobbs said.

“We do continue to hire a significant amount of engineers in all aspects of our business,” Hobbs said.

The majority of the firm’s more than 3,700 engineers work for Hobbs in a consulting unit that previously set up its own engineer-focused career track. The spread of agentic AI to tax and audit as well as traditional advisory work spurred the creation of a firm-wide track for engineers, Hobbs said.

“This was a trajectory that we were on before the explosion of AI, but it’s certainly accelerating,” he said.

PwC also plans to woo college engineering students with a program targeted for juniors. Leaders aim to spread the message that “engineering talent is at parity with all other talent that we have in the firm,” he said.

AI Investments

PwC, also known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to plug AI into it core services for clients. Those investments have led to new tools for front-line accountants while acquisitions brought new AI capabilities and staff online.

For example, the firm launched in October a suite of audit tools meant to free up time so auditors can focus more on financial reporting risks. A deal to buy financial services engineering firm Kunai brought 500 people onto PwC’s payroll last year.

Partnerships with top tech players such as Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp. offer increasingly lucrative opportunities for PwC and its Big Four peers as they guide clients to adopt new tools and ways of working. PwC’s US arm also audits the books of semiconductor maker Broadcom Inc. and chips producer Nvidia Corp., the most valuable company in the world.

PwC’s top competitors have also invested heavily to roll out new AI-focused service lines and put generative and agentic AI tools at their fingertips.

Deloitte has committed $3 billion for AI while EY’s US arm has pledged to devote $1 billion to support clients in using the emerging technology. KPMG has said it would spend $4.2 billion on a range of investments including AI-backed technology.

Limited Talent Pool

Demand for experienced engineers who specialize in machine learning and advanced artificial intelligence is fierce. And the number of candidates is limited, making those roles among the toughest to fill, said Thomas Vick, a senior regional director with staffing firm Robert Half.

Wages rose more than 4% last year for those professionals with top pay for experienced specialists starting at just under $200,000. The broader IT industry saw pay increases of just 1.6%, according to salary data from the staffing firm.

Candidates might weigh multiple offers while they consider factors such as the ability to work remotely on top of pay and bonuses, Vick said.

PwC is competing against not just big tech companies but AI start-ups, outsourcing entities based in India, even its own clients, Hobbs said. “It’s the broad and total market.”