builtinireland.ie/references/<name>
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The Forge · references
Not a badge. Not a course certificate. A signed PDF letter on Raven Design letterhead, co-signed by Built In Ireland, with a matching public page at builtinireland.ie/references/your-slug any recruiter can open in one click. Earned by shipping real work on a real Irish site, not by completing a tutorial.
A PDF you can attach to an email or LinkedIn message. A public URL you can paste into a CV. Both say the same thing. Both can be checked.
One A4 page on Raven Design letterhead. Names the project, the dates you worked, the specific contributions you shipped, and the impact (real visitor counts on the real site). Signed by Kali at Raven Design and counter-signed by Built In Ireland co-op. PDF/A format so it doesn't change over time.
Lives at builtinireland.ie/references/your-slug. Mirrors the letter word-for-word. Has a "Verify this reference" footer that explains how to check it's authentic. Indexed by Google so a recruiter searching your name finds it. Cannot be edited after issue (we keep a git history).
A realistic sample so you can see exactly what you'll earn. Aoife is fictional — we'll publish the first real one when cohort 1 ships in July 2026.
15 July 2026
To whom it may concern,
This letter confirms that Aoife O'Brien completed the Summer 2026 cohort of The Forge — Built In Ireland's cooperative-project programme — working on the localnews.ie project under my mentorship between 1 June and 15 July 2026.
localnews.ie is a live Irish local-news index serving approximately 50,000 monthly readers across all 32 counties. It runs daily scrapers, dedup, and SEO-optimised town pages across an evolving network of regional sources.
What Aoife shipped
CollectionPage structured-data block.Impact
As of this letter's date, Aoife's six town pages collectively serve approximately 410 unique visitors per week (Matomo, last 14 days). Her Carlow Nationalist scraper has ingested 247 stories since going live. Both scrapers are part of the production pipeline and require no further attention from the original author — a meaningful technical bar for a first production shipment.
How she worked
Aoife joined her weekly mentor call every week of the cohort. She asked clear, scoped questions, opened her own pull requests, addressed review feedback the same day, and proactively flagged one piece of work she didn't think was good enough to merge — which we then iterated on together. She is the kind of junior who will move from junior to mid quickly under good supervision.
Who to contact to verify
This reference is also published publicly at builtinireland.ie/references/aoife-obrien-localnews. To verify, open that URL and check it matches this letter word-for-word. The page cannot be edited after issue — change history is kept publicly. If you'd prefer a person, email kali@ravendesign.ie.
My recommendation
I'd hire Aoife into any junior Python / web role on a small-to-mid team without hesitation. She is technically capable, professionally communicative, and ships. Strongly recommended.
No favouritism. No mystery. You know exactly where you stand at week 2 of the cohort.
A "ticket" is a unit of work agreed with your mentor at the start of the cohort. Has to be visibly shipped — merged to main, deployed, visible on the live site.
Attend your weekly mentor check-in (or reschedule with notice). Active in the project chat. Standard rhythm — we're not measuring keyboard time, we're measuring commitment.
Your mentor (Kali for cohort 1) reviews the shipped work and confirms it meets the bar. One-click yes/no after week 4. If it's no, you'll know why and you get to keep working.
Two paragraphs from you: what you built, what you learned, what surprised you. We use it to write the letter in your voice and to improve the cohort programme.
The full journey, in plain numbers.
Apply via the join form. Within 48 hours we confirm your spot and introduce you in the project chat. You meet your mentor on a quick 15-minute call.
Pick tickets, ship them, get them reviewed, merge. One small thing per week. Your mentor signs off each piece. By week 4 you should have 4 shipped tickets.
You write two short paragraphs about what you built and learned. Mentor reads and confirms quality. Letter is drafted from your reflection in your voice.
Signed PDF emailed to you. Public verifiable URL published at builtinireland.ie/references/<your-slug>. Both linked from your LinkedIn the same day.
Two co-signers because one signature is easier to fake than two.
An Irish design studio founded by Kali. Builds and operates a portfolio of 50+ live .ie sites including localnews.ie, pubhub.ie, myid.ie, rural.ie, usability.ie. Active since 2024. Real company, real letterhead, real email.
The platform that runs The Forge programme. Counter-signs every reference. Maintains the public reference register at /references/. Cannot retroactively change a reference after issue — the change history is in git and is itself public.
The PDF can be faked like any PDF. That's why every Forge reference has a matching public page at builtinireland.ie/references/<slug> with the same content. Recruiters can open that URL in one click and confirm the reference exists, who signed it, when, and for what work. If the URL doesn't exist or doesn't match the PDF, the reference is fake.
You'll know by week 3 if you're on track. Mentors raise concerns early, not at the end. If after honest feedback you still haven't hit the criteria by week 4, you don't get a reference for that cohort — but you keep your code, your portfolio piece, and the option to try again. We've published the criteria publicly precisely so this isn't a judgement call.
Yes, and we encourage it. Both the PDF and the verifiable URL are yours to share. We don't take a cut and we don't lock the artefact behind a paywall.
The reference register is mirrored to a public GitHub repository. If the website goes dark, the references stay online via the mirror. Reference IDs (e.g. BII-2026-001) are durable identifiers that work against either source.
Yes — Kali's email and the reference ID are both on the letter. Verifying takes about 30 seconds.
No. A reference is a record of work you did at a specific time. The work doesn't un-happen. The letter says what you shipped when, and that doesn't go out of date.