I’ve been fortunate throughout my career to be mentored and influenced by my peers. 8th Light belongs to a community of software that is more open and honest than the traditional business community would ever be. Instead of fighting for the last dollar, we have collaborated, advised, and been transparent in ways that help all of us make each other better.

It has been a remarkable feeling to have support, advocates, and challengers who care. We have operated as a “trust-first” community rather than a “dog-eat-dog” competition. We have a similar goal of being great places for designers, engineers, and our support staffs to work to solve interesting problems that increase the quality of software in the world.

This is why I am so excited to announce that 8th Light and Adorable have joined forces as a combined team!

For Our Clients

Our clients can expect to see more of the same. Adorable's developers and designers have joined as 8th Light, and will continue providing the personal and professional service that our clients have come to appreciate and expect from our team.

The new 8th Light Madison office will also allow us to service more clients at once—particularly Madison- and Wisconsin-based businesses—without diluting or sacrificing our commitment to each individual company.

For Our Community

Adorable has done some amazing work in the community, and we’re thrilled to be able to leverage 8th Light’s resources to deepen our investments and spread these initiatives to new communities.

For years, Adorable has organized the Madison+ Ruby conferences, including this year’s conference in Chicago. We’re excited to add this to our portfolio of conferences, and begin hosting them in additional locations around the world.

In partnership with YWCA, Adorable also founded the YWeb Career Academy. This bootcamp teaches women and people of color to learn to write software. After graduation from the program, students get to keep their laptops, and are guaranteed placement at a partnering local business. This program has obvious overlaps with some of 8th Light’s existing efforts—including our partnerships with Black Girls Tech and Next Tech Girls in London, our external mentorship and internship programs in Chicago, and our involvement with numerous like-minded Meetups in each of our offices worldwide—and we are excited about the possibility of expanding this investment to more software communities around the world.

Looking Forward

As 8th Light continues to grow, we continue to discover new ways to improve the quality of software in the world. Our new colleagues will help expand our partnerships and deepen our ability to impact our clients and our communities, and we could not be more excited about the work we will get to do together.