About
Built In Ireland is a small, deliberate operation: an Irish talent pool for Irish employers, powered by a cooperative-project programme called The Forge. Members ship real features on real Irish sites under a mentor, earn a verifiable reference, and walk into hiring conversations with proof of work instead of promises.
Ireland in 2026 has two awkward realities sitting next to each other. A generation of grads who can't get a junior role without "2+ years of experience". A wave of post-layoff tech workers — sharp, mid-career, suddenly idle. A growing population of returners, career-changers, and newcomers whose qualifications nobody will read past the first line of the CV.
And at the same time: Irish employers who'd genuinely like to hire from this pool but can't tell who's good from a CV. So the loop stays broken. Talented people stay on the bench. Companies under-hire. Everyone loses time.
Built In Ireland fixes the proof problem. Members do real, shipped work in a structured four-week cohort. The reference at the end isn't a course certificate or a badge — it's a signed letter on Raven Design letterhead, co-signed by Built In Ireland, with a matching public verifiable URL any recruiter can open in one click. By the time you're at the interview, the question "can you do the work?" has already been answered.
A small operation by design. One mentor, one studio backing it, one verifiable reference register.
Kali runs Raven Design, an Irish design studio that builds and operates a portfolio of more than 50 live .ie sites. The list includes localnews.ie (a 50,000-MAU local-news network), pubhub.ie (national pubs directory), myid.ie (Irish identity explainer), usability.ie (UX research), themarketingpod.ie (digital marketing journal), and dozens more. She's a non-developer who ships production code daily using exactly the AI-paired tools The Forge teaches.
"Most people who can't get hired aren't short of ability. They're short of evidence. The Forge produces evidence."
Raven Design is the studio that co-signs every Built In Ireland reference. Real letterhead, real email, real phone number. Recruiters can verify any reference by emailing Kali directly — there's no "info@" inbox.
Built In Ireland is the operating brand of the cooperative-project programme. Counter-signs every reference. Maintains the public reference register. References cannot be edited after issue — change history is in a public git repository, mirrored daily. The integrity of the register is the entire product.
Two front doors, one shared verifiable backbone.
The cooperative-project programme. Members join a cohort, ship to a live Irish site, earn a reference. Free. See The Forge →
The hiring side. Post a role free, get matched with three Forge members who've shipped relevant work. Pay only when someone starts. See the employer view →
Both sides share the same codebase, the same design, and the same verifiable reference register. They're separated by audience and tone — not by infrastructure or trust model.
Just as important as what we do.
The Forge is and will remain free for members. Always. The cost model is: employers pay a flat 8% success fee on hire (first five hires free while we're getting started), and that's it. No membership tiers, no premium features locked behind a paywall, no "pro" cohorts. If you can't pay, you can still join. That's the whole point.
We promise you'll do real work, get a real reference, and meet real Irish employers. We can't promise an offer at the end, because hiring decisions belong to employers. What we do promise: by the time you're in an interview, the proof-of-capability part is already done.
Every reference is public, indexable, and verifiable. The register is mirrored to GitHub. Members can leave the platform and their work, reference, and contacts all stay with them. If we shut down tomorrow, the references stay verifiable.
We're starting with one mentor and three projects. The next decisions — Discord, portal, more projects — only happen when the existing cohort is healthy and shipping. Growth that breaks the quality of the reference breaks everything.
This is one founder, one studio, one cohort starting up. We'll say so. As we grow we'll say so. The point of being small and honest is that the references you earn from us actually mean something specific.