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Our history

Thoughtworks was founded in Chicago in 1993.  At that time, information technology was regarded as a cost center and one with an appalling track record of delivery and wastage. 

 

Thoughtworks aspired to change this through experimenting and learning to drive continuous improvement and the pursuit of excellence in the craft of software development. Our commitment to engineering excellence has seen us grow to become a leading technology consultancy with over 10,000+ Thoughtworkers across 47 offices in 18 countries. Today, we help our clients to deliver extraordinary impact by blending design, engineering and AI expertise.

Thoughtworks was founded in Chicago in 1993.  At that time, information technology was regarded as a cost center and one with an appalling track record of delivery and wastage. 

 

Thoughtworks aspired to change this through experimenting and learning to drive continuous improvement and the pursuit of excellence in the craft of software development. Our commitment to engineering excellence has seen us grow to become a leading technology consultancy with over 10,000+ Thoughtworkers across 47 offices in 18 countries. Today, we help our clients to deliver extraordinary impact by blending design, engineering and AI expertise.

Key milestones

2025

  • Thoughtworks named as a Leader and a Customer Favorite in The Forrester Wave™ Modern Application Development Services, Q1 2025 report.
  • Thoughtworks partner, Mechanical Orchard, honored as a Cool Vendor in the 2025 Gartner® Cool Vendors™ in AI Code Assistants report.
  • Honored as Databricks Partner of the Year in Latin America for modernizing communications, media and entertainment.
  • Thoughtworks reinforces commitment to world-class security and data protection with Global ISO 27001 Certification.

2024

  • Acquired people and technology assets from Watchful.
  • Mike Sutcliff joins as new Chief Executive Officer and Director.
  • Thoughtworks is named a Visionary in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Custom Software Development Services, Worldwide.
  • Thoughtworks Completes Transaction to Go Private in $1.75 Billion Deal with Apax Funds.

2023

  • Acquired Itoc, a privately-held, AWS-focused cloud infrastructure company based in Brisbane, Australia.
  • 30th anniversary of Thoughtworks.
  • Thoughtworks announced expansion plans in Switzerland.

2022

  • Acquired Connected in Canada and Handmade in Brazil.
  • Named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Modern Application Development Services, Q3 2022.
  • Opened office in Vietnam.
  • Named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Migration and Managed Service Partners in Asia Pacific, Q4 2022.

2021

  • Acquired Gemini Solutions, to strengthen European presence and Fourkind, to deepen machine learning and data science capabilities. Opened first offices in Romania, Netherlands and Finland.
  • Great Place to Work-Certified™ in many global locations, with additional regional rankings such as Best Workplaces for Women™ in Brazil and the UK.
  • Launched Decoder, the business execs' guide to technology and Looking Glass report.
  • Launched new brand position and unveiled new logo and visual identity. Thoughtworks became a publicly listed company with Nasdaq.

2020

  • Named strong performer in digital product development by Forrester Research Inc.
  • Committed to the Valuable 500, the global movement putting disability on the business leadership agenda.
  • Awarded IT Vendor of the Year by the UK IT Industry Awards.

2019

  • Published The Digital Transformation Game Plan: Thirty-four tenets for masterfully merging technology and business.
  • Published How to Move Beyond a Monolithic Data Lake to a Distributed Data Mesh, introducing a radical new paradigm for data platforms that can enable enterprises to realize value from their data investments.

2018

  • Awarded Daimler supplier of the year for innovation for 2017.
  • Surpassed 5,000 Thoughtworkers.
  • Launched Perspectives: a publication for digital leaders.

2017

  • The Apax Partners acquired Thoughtworks.
  • Opened first offices in Thailand.

2016

  • Opened first offices in Spain and Chile.
  • First awarded the winner of the AnitaB.org Institute’s top companies for women technologists, winning again in 2017 and 2018 and recognized as a leader in 2019 and 2020.

2015

  • Collaborated with Save the Children in the fight against Ebola, including developing an open-source and adaptable electronic medical record system that was used in Sierra Leone.
  • Published Building Microservices.

2014

  • Opened first offices in Italy. Published the seminal article Microservices and Building Microservices.
  • Surpassed 3,000 Thoughtworkers.

2013

  • Opened first offices in Ecuador.

2012

  • Opened first offices in Singapore.
  • Started building Bahmni, an open source Electronic Medical Record (EMR) designed specifically for healthcare providers in low-resource settings.

2011

  • Published first edition of Thoughtworks Technology Radar, tracking the new developments in technology across techniques, tools, platforms, languages and frameworks.

2010

  • Opened first offices in Germany.
  • Published Continuous Delivery: reliable software releases through build, test and deployment automation.

2009

  • Opened first offices in Brazil.
  • Surpassed 1,000 Thoughtworkers.

2005

  • Established Thoughtworks University, an immersive program to prepare graduates and careers changers for their first client engagements while planting the seeds for long-term leadership and cultural impact.

2004

  • Opened first offices in China.
  • Selenium, the leading web application testing framework today, was developed based on work started internally at Thoughtworks.
  • Surpassed 500 Thoughtworkers.

2001

  • Opened first offices in India and Canada.
  • A 27-year-old Guo Xiao was featured in The Economist as an early adopter of Extreme Programming (XP), an agile software development framework.
  • Manifesto for agile software development was published (co-authored by our Chief Scientist Martin Fowler).
  • Released CruiseControl open source software.

2000

  • Opened first offices in Australia and the United Kingdom.
  • Led the industry in adopting a distributed agile development approach.

1999

  • Guo Xiao and Dr. Rebecca Parsons joined Thoughtworks.

1993

  • Thoughtworks was founded in Chicago.

Together, let’s be extraordinary