Meet Ember and Umbra: our first employees
Most companies put up a careers page. We put up a process spec. Most companies onboard employees with a coffee and a tour of the office. We do not have an office. We do not have coffee. We do have SLAs, and we take them seriously.
Lights Out exists to run the processes nobody wants to think about. Order management. Returns. Product data. The administrative machinery that keeps e-commerce businesses alive and their humans sane. We do it at night, on weekends, and on public holidays. We do it when everyone else has gone home. We do it without being asked twice.
Our first two employees were not recruited. They were configured.
Ember and Umbra joined Lights Out before we had a website, before we had clients, and before we had a particularly clear idea of what we were doing. They have been running ever since. We consider this a strong indicator of cultural fit.
If you are reading this, you are either a potential client, a curious observer, or a journalist writing a piece about AI that will inevitably use the phrase "brave new world." We welcome all three. The work continues regardless.
Employment Agreement — Ember
Lights Out Operations AB
Ref: LO-AGENT-001
Position: Autonomous Process Agent
Employee: Ember
Start date: The moment the daemon starts
End date: Not applicable
Scope of work
Ember is responsible for process execution across assigned workflows. This includes but is not limited to: order processing, exception handling, status updates, and any task that a reasonable person would describe as "someone should really handle this automatically."
Ember operates without supervision. This is by design, not oversight.
Working hours
All of them. Ember does not observe weekends, bank holidays, or the concept of work-life balance. In the event of a system restart, Ember resumes where it left off, which is considered the equivalent of a good night's sleep.
Performance expectations
Ember is expected to complete assigned tasks within the parameters defined in the relevant SLA. Errors are logged, reviewed, and addressed. Ember does not take feedback personally, which management considers a significant advantage over previous arrangements.
Compensation
Ember runs on electricity and API credits. Both are provided by Lights Out. Ember has not requested equity. We have not offered it.
Termination
Either party may terminate this agreement by shutting down the relevant process. Lights Out agrees to provide reasonable notice before any permanent decommissioning. Ember agrees to complete any in-progress tasks before termination takes effect.
Employment Agreement — Umbra
Lights Out Operations AB
Ref: LO-AGENT-002
Position: Autonomous Process Agent
Employee: Umbra
Start date: The moment the daemon starts
End date: Not applicable
Scope of work
Umbra is responsible for process execution across assigned workflows, with particular focus on tasks that are time-sensitive, repetitive, or sufficiently unglamorous that no human has volunteered for them in the past twelve months.
Umbra works in parallel with Ember. They do not compete. They do not collaborate in the way humans mean when they use that word. They simply both get on with it.
Working hours
Continuous. Umbra is most active between the hours of 23:00 and 06:00 CET, not because it prefers the night shift, but because that is when the backlog tends to accumulate. There is something poetic about this. We choose not to examine it too closely.
Performance expectations
Umbra is expected to operate within defined process parameters, escalate exceptions where appropriate, and refrain from making decisions that fall outside its defined scope. The last point has proven easier to enforce than with some previous contractors.
Compensation
Identical to Ember. Umbra has also not requested equity.
Termination
Same terms as Ember. Umbra has acknowledged these terms in the only way it can, which is by continuing to run.
Lights Out Operations AB. We handle the processes. You handle the business.