The Academy is a cohort where you join a real Irish project, ship it under a mentor, and graduate with a public, verifiable reference letter at builtinireland.ie/references/<you>. Free for members. No fluff courses. Real users, real code, real reference.
Each cohort tackles one well-bounded project on a live Irish site. You pick a role that matches your aptitude, you ship for four weeks, you graduate with a reference.
Fill out localnews.ie's coverage of County Carlow from the ground up. Sources, entities, town pages, a working scraper, design assets. Eight to ten members across six roles.
Apply now →Ship 10 editorial explainer pages on myid.ie that rank. Writers, researchers, an SEO analyst and a vibe coder pair up to take topics from brief to published.
See all cohorts →Enrich the Irish pub directory with verified data: opening hours, food, music, sport, accessibility. Members research one county each and ship in a four-week sprint.
See all cohorts →Four steps. No exams, no certificates, no "completion badges". A public reference and a piece of live work you can point at.
Pick a cohort, fill out a short form. We'll match you to a role that fits your aptitude.
Cohort starts when we have enough members confirmed. You meet your mentor and your team on a kickoff call.
Four weeks of real work on a real Irish site. Weekly check-in with your mentor. Issue-tracked, paced, supported.
Mentor signs off. You get a public reference letter at builtinireland.ie/references/<you> and a portfolio piece linked to the live work.
Every Academy project runs on a live Irish site with real users. Your work appears in production, not in a sandbox.
Each cohort adopts one of these for four weeks. More join the rotation as cohorts run.
Most coding bootcamps and career programmes graduate you with a certificate. A certificate proves you finished. It doesn't prove you shipped.
The Academy graduates you with a reference letter co-signed by Built In Ireland and Raven Design, hosted at a verifiable URL on builtinireland.ie. It names the cohort, names the project, names the specific work you contributed, and links to it live. Anyone — employer, recruiter, client — can visit the URL and see the proof.
That's the entire product. See a sample reference →