Custom software for Chicago — built the AI-native way.
We pair senior engineers with an AI-accelerated delivery model to ship custom software for Chicago's fintech, logistics, and B2B operators — without the fragile output that gives AI a bad name.
AI changed the economics of custom software. We rebuilt our process around it.
Chicago is the deepest fintech, trading, logistics, and B2B SaaS market in the Midwest, anchored by financial-services giants and a strong middle-market software scene from the Loop out through River North and West Loop. Senior hires are six figures, months out, and almost always picked over. The old build-from-scratch model can't keep up. AI changes the math, but only when senior people own the parts AI gets wrong.
On a Chicago trading, fintech, or logistics build, the repetitive 70% — schemas, dashboards, scaffolding, glue — is exactly where AI moves fastest. The 30% that punishes you in production is order-of-operations on a busy order book, time-zone bugs in nightly batches that touch CT, ET, and UTC at once, supervision logging that has to survive a FINRA exam, and supply-chain integrations that fail silently on a partial shipment. Raw AI output gets those wrong without flinching.
We build for Chicago operators — trading-firm internal tools, fintech platforms scaling for compliance, logistics dashboards that cover the rail-and-truck spine of the country, and B2B SaaS rolling out to manufacturers across the Midwest. Our model: AI handles scaffolding and the repetitive 70%; a senior engineer owns architecture, security review, and signs off on every change.
AI writes the first draft. A senior engineer signs off.
Every change runs through review for security, tests, and architecture before it ships — that review is the product.
const draft = await ai.generate(spec) // minutes, not daysreview(draft, { security: true, tests: true, architecture: true })// ✗ rejected: race condition on order-book write under load → idempotent + queue + replay test// ✓ merged: explicit timezone handling on nightly batch, supervision log for every order actionOn a Chicago trading or logistics build, the failure modes are race conditions under load, timezone drift, and missing supervision trails. Senior review catches them before FINRA or a missed shipment does.
What we build for Chicago companies.
Fintech & payments platforms
Customer-facing apps, ledgers, and risk pipelines for regulated, data-heavy products.
Supply-chain & ops platforms
Routing, dispatch, inventory, and visibility tools that replace clipboards and spreadsheets.
Insurance & claims platforms
Underwriting tools, claims automation, and broker portals for carriers and InsurTechs.
SaaS platforms
Multi-tenant products with auth, billing, and dashboards — MVP to scale.
AI applications
Copilots, RAG, search, and agents grounded in your data, with guardrails and evals.
Internal tools & copilots
Operations tooling that replaces the spreadsheet-and-tribal-knowledge workflow.
A senior team that moves at AI speed.
You work with senior engineers in Central Time who own architecture and quality — same business hours as your Loop, River North, or West Loop team — not a junior pool with raw AI output bolted on. We integrate with your existing tools and on-call.
Chicago's senior engineering pool is split across a handful of large employers and a quiet pull from coastal remote roles. Hiring takes months. An AI-native team gets you shipping inside a week, flexes monthly, and doesn't ask for a Loop office lease.
Talk to an engineerTraditional Chicago dev shop vs. AI-native.
| Traditional Agency | DEV.co (AI-native) | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to working software | Months | Days to weeks |
| Cost | Full senior rates, all hours | Lower — AI removes the rote work |
| Code quality | Good (if senior) | Same bar — every change reviewed |
| AI risk | — | Contained by senior review + tests |
| You own the code | Usually | Always — full repo on day one |
| Scales with you | Slow to staff up | Flex up or down monthly |
Common questions from Chicago teams.
Do you work with Chicago companies?
Do you work with regulated finance and trading teams?
Can you integrate with our OMS / EMS / market-data feeds?
Is AI-built software production-ready?
Will we own the code?
How fast can we start?
Can you work with our existing team?
Let's build it — Chicago.
Tell us what you're shipping. We'll give you a senior engineer's read, an honest timeline, a fixed quote, and tell you whether AI-native is the right fit for your build.