About 8th Light
8th Light is a software development company that is enthusiastic about making fruitful long-term partnerships with clients. They believe that they will have full clarity and control projects in real-time conversations. Their team of skilled app developers tries to serve their customers by direct, collaborative, and sustainable campaigns that produce beneficial results.
Services
Mobile App Development
Web Development
UI-UX Design
Custom Software Development
Web Design
8th Light Reviews
Write a ReviewFinance and operations finally speaking the same data language thanks to this team
Sinead Gallagher / Director of Engineering - Celtic Digital Ltd
Verified
Apr 11, 2024
Apr 11, 2024
Project summary: We needed to connect our factory floor systems to our ERP to give operations management real-time visibility into production status, waste, and throughput.
Our industry has specific compliance requirements that many generalist agencies struggle with. This team came with working knowledge of the relevant frameworks, asked pointed questions about our obligations, and built controls into the architecture rather than bolting them on at the end. Our compliance team reviewed the delivered system and had only minor observations, which is genuinely unusual for a first-pass review. That domain awareness saved us significant remediation cost.
PROS
Architectural decisions that will serve us for years rather than just solving the immediate problem, knowledge transfer that left our team genuinely capable, no scope creep at all
CONS
Time zone difference required some adjustment to our internal communication habits but the team managed the overlap window efficiently and it never affected momentum
Project TypeERP Development
IndustryManufacturing
Project Cost$50,000 to $149,999
DurationApr 2025 – May 2026
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
As Director of Engineering at Celtic Digital Ltd, I manage a cross-functional technology team serving our Manufacturing clients from Cork, Ireland. We are a commercially focused organisation and every technology decision we make is evaluated against a clear business case. We needed a partner who understood that context, not just the technical brief.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a product concept validated by market research but no clear path to build it within our budget and timeline constraints. Our Manufacturing competitors were moving quickly and we could not afford to spend eighteen months finding out a generalist agency could not execute the ERP Development work our product required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The full ERP Development lifecycle from discovery through to production deployment and hypercare support. This included requirements workshops, solution architecture, sprint-based development, QA and automated testing, deployment to our cloud environment, and a structured handover with documentation. They also provided a brief post-launch period of dedicated support which was genuinely useful.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
Price was a factor but not the deciding one. They were mid-range in our evaluation. What tipped it was the combination of their technical depth in ERP Development, the seniority of the team they proposed to assign to our account, and the clarity of their project governance model. We had been burned by an agency that overpromised before and we needed to see evidence of process maturity.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
The requirements understanding was solid from early on, aided by the fact that they had prior experience in the Manufacturing sector and did not need us to explain domain context that a less experienced team would have required. That background knowledge shortened the discovery phase meaningfully and reduced the volume of clarification questions during sprints.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Outstanding. I have worked with agencies that communicate beautifully during the sales process and go quiet during delivery. This was the opposite — structured, consistent, and genuinely informative throughout. Problems were surfaced early with proposed solutions rather than just problem statements, which made the inevitable mid-project decisions much easier to make.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
Yes on both counts. There was one sprint where a third-party integration took longer than scoped because of undocumented API behaviour on the vendor side. The team flagged it immediately, proposed two mitigation options, and we agreed on an approach that recovered the timeline within two weeks. That is how scope issues should be handled and rarely are.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
The most direct measure is that the problem we hired them to solve no longer exists. Beyond that, the new ERP Development platform has reduced our operational overhead measurably, our team spends less time managing incidents and more time on product development, and we have been able to onboard two new enterprise clients who had previously cited our technical limitations as a barrier.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The quality of the written communication. This matters more than most clients articulate. Clear, concise, technically accurate updates that our non-technical stakeholders could read and understand. Proposals and change requests that made the decision obvious rather than obscuring it in jargon. That communication quality reduced our internal coordination overhead significantly.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Unreservedly. We are in active conversation about the next phase of work and I expect this to become a multi-year partnership. For any organisation in the Manufacturing space looking for a ERP Development partner who combines technical rigour with genuine commercial awareness, I would put this team at the top of the shortlist.
Polished iOS and Android delivery that hit every milestone without drama
Femke Hoekstra / Head of IT - Delta Logistics BV
Verified
Aug 22, 2022
Aug 22, 2022
Project summary: Inter-agency data sharing had become a bottleneck and we needed a secure, auditable integration platform that met government security classification requirements.
Our industry has specific compliance requirements that many generalist agencies struggle with. This team came with working knowledge of the relevant frameworks, asked pointed questions about our obligations, and built controls into the architecture rather than bolting them on at the end. Our compliance team reviewed the delivered system and had only minor observations, which is genuinely unusual for a first-pass review. That domain awareness saved us significant remediation cost.
PROS
Domain knowledge that went beyond generic expertise into our specific industry, willingness to push back constructively, automated test coverage that gave us deployment confidence
CONS
Honestly nothing worth documenting — we went in with high expectations and they were met on every measure
Project TypeMobile App Development
IndustryGovernment & Public Sector
Project Cost$150,000 to $499,999
DurationOct 2025 – Feb 2026
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
I lead technology at Delta Logistics BV, a mid-sized organisation in the Government & Public Sector sector headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands. My remit as Head of IT covers everything from infrastructure to product development. We had reached a point where our internal engineering capacity was not sufficient to execute our roadmap without an experienced external partner.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a product concept validated by market research but no clear path to build it within our budget and timeline constraints. Our Government & Public Sector competitors were moving quickly and we could not afford to spend eighteen months finding out a generalist agency could not execute the Mobile App Development work our product required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The core engagement was Mobile App Development but expanded to include technical consultancy during the discovery phase, which helped us refine the requirements significantly before development began. They also took responsibility for coordinating with our third-party data providers, which removed a significant coordination burden from our internal team.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
Honestly, the quality of the questions they asked during the briefing process set them apart. Most vendors listen to the brief and come back with a solution to exactly what you described. This team came back with a solution to what we actually needed, which turned out to be somewhat different. That kind of consultative instinct is what we were looking for.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Thorough and precise. They translated our business language into technical requirements without losing the intent, which is a skill that sounds straightforward but frequently goes wrong. Every user story they wrote was reviewed against the original business objective before it entered the sprint and the acceptance criteria were specific enough to remove subjectivity from QA.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Professional and efficient. We used a shared project management tool that gave our stakeholders visibility without requiring them to attend every meeting. The project manager had a clear escalation path and used it appropriately. The only time I needed to intervene directly was when I chose to, not because something had been missed.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
Yes. I will note that the original timeline was aggressive and I had privately expected a slip. They managed to hold it by making smart sequencing decisions early on that I only fully understood in retrospect. The budget discipline was equally good — we received a single change request for scope we had introduced ourselves and it was priced fairly.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
Hard to isolate precisely because several factors changed simultaneously, but the data we can attribute directly to the new Mobile App Development platform shows a meaningful improvement in the metrics that matter to our Government & Public Sector business. Our account managers report that the new capability is coming up positively in client conversations, which was one of the strategic objectives we started with.
What did you like most about working with this company?
Their ability to hold the business objective in mind alongside the technical task. I have worked with technically excellent agencies who lost the thread of what we were actually trying to achieve. This team never did. Every architectural decision, every trade-off conversation, every prioritisation discussion was anchored to the outcome we had agreed at the start.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Yes, without qualification. I have already made two direct referrals to peers in the Government & Public Sector sector who were facing similar Mobile App Development challenges. In both cases I gave the recommendation specifically because I was confident the experience would match what I described — which is a level of confidence I do not extend lightly.
Multiplayer backend that held up under launch-day load without a single crash
Stephanie Coleman / SVP of Digital Strategy - Horizon Financial Group
Verified
Aug 11, 2022
Aug 11, 2022
Project summary: The project had both a hard delivery date tied to a board commitment and a scope that our previous agency had told us was not achievable. We needed someone to prove otherwise.
Our industry has specific compliance requirements that many generalist agencies struggle with. This team came with working knowledge of the relevant frameworks, asked pointed questions about our obligations, and built controls into the architecture rather than bolting them on at the end. Our compliance team reviewed the delivered system and had only minor observations, which is genuinely unusual for a first-pass review. That domain awareness saved us significant remediation cost.
PROS
Domain knowledge that went beyond generic expertise into our specific industry, willingness to push back constructively, automated test coverage that gave us deployment confidence
CONS
The volume of quality documentation they produced was genuinely impressive but also meant our team needed dedicated time to review it properly — a minor process point, not a complaint
Project TypeGame Development
IndustryFood & Beverage
Project Cost$150,000 to $499,999
DurationJan 2025 – Oct 2025
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
Horizon Financial Group operates across the Food & Beverage sector with offices in Boston, USA. In my capacity as SVP of Digital Strategy I oversee both the strategic and operational technology agenda. We are a growth-stage business that needed a development partner capable of scaling with us rather than constraining us.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a product concept validated by market research but no clear path to build it within our budget and timeline constraints. Our Food & Beverage competitors were moving quickly and we could not afford to spend eighteen months finding out a generalist agency could not execute the Game Development work our product required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The full Game Development lifecycle from discovery through to production deployment and hypercare support. This included requirements workshops, solution architecture, sprint-based development, QA and automated testing, deployment to our cloud environment, and a structured handover with documentation. They also provided a brief post-launch period of dedicated support which was genuinely useful.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
Honestly, the quality of the questions they asked during the briefing process set them apart. Most vendors listen to the brief and come back with a solution to exactly what you described. This team came back with a solution to what we actually needed, which turned out to be somewhat different. That kind of consultative instinct is what we were looking for.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Thorough and precise. They translated our business language into technical requirements without losing the intent, which is a skill that sounds straightforward but frequently goes wrong. Every user story they wrote was reviewed against the original business objective before it entered the sprint and the acceptance criteria were specific enough to remove subjectivity from QA.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Outstanding. I have worked with agencies that communicate beautifully during the sales process and go quiet during delivery. This was the opposite — structured, consistent, and genuinely informative throughout. Problems were surfaced early with proposed solutions rather than just problem statements, which made the inevitable mid-project decisions much easier to make.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
On time and within the agreed budget. They had given us a range estimate at the start, which I had been sceptical of, and they landed within the lower half of that range. Their estimation accuracy came from having broken the work down in genuine detail during discovery rather than giving a rough number and hoping. It showed in every sprint.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
Hard to isolate precisely because several factors changed simultaneously, but the data we can attribute directly to the new Game Development platform shows a meaningful improvement in the metrics that matter to our Food & Beverage business. Our account managers report that the new capability is coming up positively in client conversations, which was one of the strategic objectives we started with.
What did you like most about working with this company?
Their ability to hold the business objective in mind alongside the technical task. I have worked with technically excellent agencies who lost the thread of what we were actually trying to achieve. This team never did. Every architectural decision, every trade-off conversation, every prioritisation discussion was anchored to the outcome we had agreed at the start.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
I recommend them to anyone who asks and occasionally to people who do not. The combination of Game Development expertise, Food & Beverage domain knowledge, and delivery discipline is genuinely difficult to find. We found it here and we intend to keep it.
Company Info
Founded
2006
Employees
50 - 249
Hourly Rate
$150 - $199
Client Rating
5.0/5 (3 reviews)