About

A small team building the AI tools we wish existed.

ThinkNext Software Solutions is an AI-augmented engineering and staffing firm. We build software with AI at every step, ship the tools we use as open source, and meet teams where they already work. Cascade is our flagship. Relay is its autonomous cousin. Our services pay for the OSS time.

Our story

We started ThinkNext because most consulting firms are still pretending AI isn't happening.

AI is changing how software gets built. Every engagement we take involves AI at multiple steps: requirements extraction, code generation, code review, testing, documentation. We are not hiding it. We show you how to do the same.

The pattern we kept hitting on past projects: the gap between "the team talked about it" and "the code shipped" is wider than anyone admits. Information leaks at every handoff. Cascade exists because we got tired of being on the leaky end of that game. Relay exists because once you can ship code from requirements, you can also ship code from a labeled ticket.

We are a small team, deliberately. We take a small number of engagements at a time, and we do them with AI leverage at every step. Our services pay the bills; our open-source projects compound the brand. When the OSS work hits a quality bar, the services pipeline takes care of itself.

Follow ThinkNext

GitHub @ThinkNextHQ LinkedIn Blog hello@thinknextsoftware.com 224-350-2113

How we work

Four principles, applied to every engagement.

We use AI at every step. We dogfood our own tools. We ship the work as open source whenever we can. We tell you what we did and why.

AI at every step, not just code

Most AI consultancies use AI for code generation and call it a day. We use it for requirements extraction (Cascade ingests meeting recordings), code review (every PR gets agent-generated, human-validated review), testing, and documentation. AI is a multiplier across the whole SDLC, not a code-completion plugin.

Your stack, your infrastructure, your keys

We don't force our tools or LLM provider on you. Cascade supports 5 LLM providers and 4 VCS systems for a reason. Claude approved? We use Claude. Only OpenAI? We use OpenAI. Can't send code to any SaaS? We run Ollama locally. The work fits your constraints, not the other way around.

Open by default, billable by exception

Generic tooling we build for clients gets open-sourced under MIT (with your blessing) so it benefits the broader community. Client-specific logic stays proprietary. That's how Cascade and Relay exist, recurring patterns across engagements that deserved to live somewhere reusable. Net-net you pay less because we're not rebuilding the same harness every project.

Auditable, every step

Every commit Cascade makes is attributable to a story. Every story is attributable to a meeting, ticket, or prompt. Every LLM call surfaces its cost. Run git log and see exactly which decisions the agent made and why. No opaque black-box automation, even when we're the ones operating it.

What we believe

AI should make engineers more senior, not redundant.

The next decade of software is being written right now, by engineers who know how to leverage AI well. Not by AI alone, and not by engineers pretending AI isn't happening. We're betting our company on the position that engineers who pair tightly with AI are 2× to 5× more effective than they were two years ago, and that the gap is widening.

We're also betting that teams who keep humans in the loop at every meaningful gate produce better outcomes than teams chasing fully autonomous AI. Approval is cheap. Recovery from a bad merge is expensive. Our tools are built for that asymmetry.

If those bets are wrong, we'll say so publicly and adjust. If they're right, we want to be the people you call when you need to ship.

Let's talk

Have a project that needs senior eyes and AI leverage?

We respond within one business day. Fixed-price proposals in 48 hours. No discovery sessions, no 6-week sales cycles.

hello@thinknextsoftware.com Book a 30-min call

Or call 224-350-2113 · 3501 W Algonquin Road, Suite 132, Rolling Meadows, IL 60008