When a bank decides to put an AI model into how it approves loans, the advice may come from Deloitte's consultants, and the engineers who build it may be in Hyderabad, in Deloitte's Indian practice.
A consulting firm sells advice to the people who run companies. For most of the last century, that was all it sold. Then the advice started to be about software: the systems to replace, the cloud to move to, the data to use, the AI model to put to work. The firms found that a client who takes the advice will also pay to have it carried out.
There are three groups of these firms:
The Big FourDeloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG, the accounting and advisory firms. They now employ more engineers than most software companies.
The strategy firmsMcKinsey, BCG and Bain, which advise companies' leaders. They have built engineering arms of their own.
Mid-sized advisory firmssuch as Capco, Sia, Huron, Crowe and Guidehouse, which have done the same on a smaller scale.
Most of these engineers are in India.
They run on the services model, with a different front door. The client relationship belongs to a partner, a senior owner of the consulting firm. The engagement begins as a decision, and becomes a build. The engineer works behind the advice, carrying out what was recommended.
Every firm named here has posted software engineering jobs in India.
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Six more sections are on this page: What these firms sell, and to whom, Inside a Big 4 technology practice, The strategy houses' build arms, One tier down, The firms, and The consulting firm that runs a client's GCC. Sign in to read them here, in full.
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What these firms sell, and to whom
They sell a decision, and then its consequences. A consulting engagement begins when a company's leaders ask what to do, about a merger, a cost, a regulator or a technology. The firm sells the answer at a price based on the value of the decision, not on the hours worked.
The engineering arm exists because, more and more, the answer is a system: the accounting system to replace, the data platform to build, the customer's app to remake, or the AI model to add to how claims are handled. The firm that gave the advice is well placed to sell the build, at consulting rates, to a client that already trusts it. The Indian engineering arm is where the build is done.
A company's leaders ask the consulting firm what to do, and the partner and consultants sell the decision, priced on its value. More and more, the answer is a system, which the firm's Indian engineering arm builds and sells back at consulting rates.
The giants' pyramid appears here as the consulting pyramid: partner, manager, consultant and analyst, with the Indian engineering centre beneath them, doing the work.
The consulting pyramid runs from partner to manager, consultant and analyst, with the Indian engineering centre beneath them, doing the work. The partner owns the client, engagements last months, and engineers are restaffed from a pool when one ends.
The clients are the largest companies in every industry, the ones whose leaders hire consultants at all, and more and more, governments. That is why the Big Four's engineering arms look like a giant's: everything, for everyone.
Inside a Big 4 technology practice
Each of the Big Four has an organisation in India of tens of thousands of people. Inside the firm, it has a name the public rarely hears:
Deloitteits US-India practice
EYits global delivery services
PwCits acceleration centres
KPMGits global services
These are the engineering arms, and they are where nearly all Big Four engineering jobs in India are.
This is where the name does not tell you the job most of all. The Indian arm of a consulting firm is not the consulting firm: its engineers build what the consultants recommended.
Deloittein Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pune, is the largest. Its work is full-stack engineering first, then AI and models, more than at any giant: the practice sells the AI model to the client, and builds it here.
EYin Bengaluru, is of the same order of size as Deloitte. Its work is business platforms and testing: the end of the practice that puts systems in.
PwCmostly in Bengaluru, does business-platform, backend and AI work.
KPMGdoes data engineering and platforms: the analytics end of the practice.
The work is project work. Engagements last months rather than years. Engineers are staffed from a pool and restaffed when an engagement ends, under a manager who reports to the partner whose client it is. The pace is faster than a giant's, and driven by proposals. The ladder is the consulting ladder, from analyst to consultant to manager, and it moves faster than a giant's.
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The strategy houses' build arms
The strategy firms came to engineering last, and on the smallest scale.
McKinseyin Delhi NCR and Bengaluru, does backend and full-stack work, with some AI. Its digital and analytics arms build for the clients its consultants advise.
BCG XBCG's build arm, in Delhi NCR and Bengaluru, does mostly full-stack engineering in small product teams. BCG itself also appears, beside its build arm.
Bainin Delhi NCR, works the same way.
Oliver Wymanhas a small full-stack team.
ZSthe analytics and consulting firm, has more than ten thousand people, in Pune and elsewhere.
These arms work more like a start-up than a giant. A team of a few engineers, a designer and a consultant builds a working product for a client's leaders in a few weeks, then moves to the next one.
They are also the most selective part of the services world. The interview combines a product company's coding test with a consulting firm's case interview, a business problem solved out loud. The intake is small, a few dozen a year across these firms, mostly from colleges the strategy firms already recruit from.
One tier down
Below the Big Four and the strategy firms sits a row of mid-sized advisory firms with engineering arms. Here, the consulting name sits on work that looks like the mid-sized firms'. (More on the mid-sized firms in Company Tier 2, Mid-sized IT services firms, in the services-world collection.)
Capcois the largest: a banking and capital-markets consultancy, owned by Wipro since 2021. Its engineers in Bengaluru, Chennai and Pune do Java backend and full-stack work for banks.
Siathe French firm, has an engineering team in Mumbai working on backend and AI.
C3the IT arm of Crowe, engineers in Hyderabad and Delhi NCR.
Huronthe American firm, builds for universities and hospitals from Bengaluru.
MHPPorsche's consulting subsidiary, engineers for the car industry.
Guidehousebuilds for the American public sector, from Chennai.
Smaller teamsCredera, Metyis, Vector Consulting, Capgemini Invent and Renoir
A mid-sized consultancy bills at consulting rates, and puts a consulting name on the work. But it does not usually work on a company leader's decisions. Its accounts are a bank's or a hospital's systems.
The firms
The Big Four
Deloitte
EY
PwC
KPMGwhich appears twice: its Indian and its American companies
The strategy firms and analytics consultancies
McKinsey
BCGwhich appears twice: the firm and its build arm, BCG X
Bain
Oliver Wyman
ZS
Mid-sized advisory firms
Capco
Sia
Crowethrough C3
Huron
MHP
Guidehouse
Credera, Metyis, Vector Consulting, Capgemini Invent and Renoir
The consulting firm that runs a client's GCC
When a bank or an insurer decides to open its own engineering centre in India, the decision is usually itself a consulting engagement. The firm that advised it is often hired to design the centre, hire its first hundred engineers, and sometimes run it for a time under the client's name. So a consulting-arm engineer can be working in a client's GCC, on the consulting firm's payroll, building what the partner recommended. The giants do the same, and the two compete for this work. (More on the giants in Company Tier 1, The IT services giants, in the services-world collection. More on GCCs in the GCC collection.)
When a bank or an insurer decides to open a GCC in India, the consulting firm that advised it often designs the centre, hires its first engineers and sometimes runs it for a time. A consulting-arm engineer can then work in the client's GCC on the consulting firm's payroll, and the giants compete for the same work.
The engineering arm that becomes the firm.
At Deloitte, the Indian practice is now a large enough part of the firm's revenue and people that its role inside the partnership is changing. The same is slowly happening at EY and PwC. The strategy firms' build arms, BCG X above all, are the fastest-growing parts of firms that were never engineering companies. The consulting firms are also selling AI harder than anyone else in the services world, and their Indian arms are where that selling turns into building. Deloitte's and PwC's Indian arms do more AI work than any giant, because the engagement a consulting firm now wins most often is one that puts an AI model into a client's process. The counter-current: the business-platform and testing work that makes up much of EY's and KPMG's arms is the work AI reaches first. A consulting firm selling its clients the automation of routine engineering is describing its own Indian arm's largest line of work.
That is the consulting firm's engineering arm: engineers in India building what the consultants recommended, under famous names that describe the advice more than the job.