Design's Moment Has Arrived: Why I Joined Pirros

If you’ve spent time in architecture or engineering, you know the pattern:

Talented teams working late, redrawing details they already solved years ago. Everyone senses there’s enormous wasted effort buried inside old project folders. We’ve just learned to accept it as part of the job.

But it doesn’t have to be.

For too long, the design phase of AEC has been underserved. While construction technology has exploded with tools for project management, field coordination, and collaboration, architecture technology software built specifically for architects and engineers has not kept pace. It's been well over a decade since design teams saw a truly category-defining innovation.

That’s why I joined Pirros.

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From PlanGrid to Pirros: Recognizing the Same Energy

When I joined PlanGrid, we were under $10M in ARR. It was a small, scrappy team with a big belief that we could change how builders work. We did. By the time of our acquisition, PlanGrid had grown to over $100M ARR and become a household name in construction.

That chapter shaped how I think about product, scale, and people. I had the privilege of working alongside incredible leaders and innovators at PlanGrid and later at Autodesk, where I saw firsthand how architecture technology can transform an industry when it's built around the people actually doing the work.

What struck me immediately about Pirros was that same energy. A mission-driven team solving an obvious, high-impact problem for one of the most creative and technically demanding professions there is: architects and engineers.

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The Problem Pirros Solves: Rework at Scale

Pirros tackles a pain every design professional knows too well: rework.

Architects and engineers spend thousands of hours recreating details that already exist somewhere in their firm's past work. Pirros changes that by turning historical project content into living intelligence, intelligently organizing and surfacing a firm's best details, families, and standards in seconds.

This is not just about faster search. It's about giving architecture technology software a real memory. Pirros helps firms capture institutional knowledge, enforce quality, and scale standards across offices, disciplines, and projects without slowing teams down.

Whether you're a 10-person studio or a global enterprise, the value is the same. In 2026, firms can no longer afford to treat rework as inevitable. The cost in time, money, and risk is too well understood now to keep absorbing it.

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The Team and the Culture

One thing I've learned from scaling startups is simple: the people matter more than anything. You need alignment with leadership, not just on vision, but on how you show up every day.

At PlanGrid, we lived by a simple rule: no jerks. It was not a slogan. It was a standard.

That same ethos is alive at Pirros. The team is sharp, collaborative, humble, and relentlessly driven. Everyone owns their work. Everyone cares deeply about the customer. That kind of culture is rare, and in a competitive AEC software market, it's a real advantage.

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Why Now: Design’s Moment Has Arrived

The architecture technology software space has been overdue for a design-native breakthrough. For years, architects and engineers watched construction-side tools leap forward while their own workflows stayed stuck.

The last tool that felt this fundamental to design teams was Bluebeam, and that was well over a decade ago. When Bluebeam arrived, adoption felt instant. It solved a real pain cleanly and completely.

We're seeing that same momentum with Pirros in 2026. Word is spreading. Firms are sharing results. Pirros's $15M Series A has provided the fuel to double down on a simple but ambitious mission: give design firms the design-native tools they have long deserved.

This investment isn't about growth for growth's sake. It's a bet on architects and engineers, helping them work faster, reduce risk, protect quality, and unlock the full value of their expertise.

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AI Built for the Way Architects and Engineers Actually Work

What excites me most about where Pirros is headed is the AI layer being built on top of this foundation.

Most AI tools being introduced to AEC right now are general purpose. They were not designed with the complexity of design workflows in mind. Pirros is different. Because the platform is built on a firm's own organized project content, the AI being developed here is trained on real institutional knowledge, the actual details, standards, and decisions that define how a firm works.

That's a meaningful distinction. Instead of a generic assistant guessing at what good looks like, Pirros is investing in AI that understands the context behind every detail. It can surface the right content, flag potential issues, and help design teams make faster, better-informed decisions without ever leaving their workflow.

This is what architecture technology software should look like in 2026. Not AI bolted on as a feature, but intelligence woven into the foundation of how design work gets done.

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We’re Just Getting Started

The growth is real, and it's accelerating. But this is still the beginning.

If you're an architect or engineer tired of recreating work you've already solved, or if you're passionate about building the next generation of architecture technology, this is your moment.

We're hiring. We're scaling. And we're building something that will change how design firms operate for decades to come.

Join us as a customer, a partner, or a teammate, and be part of the next major shift in AEC.

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Ross Wagner

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