Four tracks. Each one is real work, on a real Irish site, mentored.

No certificates, no exams, no theory weeks. You pick a track that fits your aptitude, you ship for four weeks, you graduate with a public reference letter and a portfolio piece that points to live code.

The tracks

Every cohort runs one or more tracks in parallel. Cohort 1 (Carlow / localnews.ie) draws from all four. Pick the one that fits how you want to work.

Track 1

Vibe Coding

For "I've never coded but I'd like to try."

Build a real Irish website using Cursor, GitHub and Vercel, with AI doing most of the typing and you doing the thinking. Four weeks from "what's a terminal" to "I shipped a working scraper into production."

Stack: Cursor + GitHub + Vercel4 weeksMentor-paired
See the syllabus →
Track 2

Editorial SEO

For writers who want their words to rank.

Take a topic gap on an Irish editorial site, research it properly, write a 1,200-2,000 word piece that earns the rank, and ship it live. Four weeks from brief to published, with peer review and SEO checks built into the cadence.

Stack: Google Docs + Markdown + GSC4 weeksPeer-reviewed
See the syllabus →
Track 3

Civic Tech

For the data-curious junior dev.

Scrape an Irish council, court or planning portal, turn the unstructured mess into clean JSON, and feed it into a live news network. Practical Python, real public data, work that improves civic transparency.

Stack: Python + requests + BeautifulSoup + JSON4 weeksMentor-paired
See the syllabus →
Track 4

Directory Data

For the meticulous researcher.

Pick a directory site (pubs, suppliers, providers, practitioners) and enrich one county's data with verified, sourced, structured facts. Phone numbers that work. Hours that match Google. Photos that load. The unglamorous work that makes directories trustworthy.

Stack: Spreadsheets + CSV + light scraping4 weeksPeer-reviewed
See the syllabus →

Not sure which track is yours?

  • If you've never written code but want to start, Vibe Coding. It's designed for total beginners with curiosity.
  • If you write well and want a piece of work you can show people that's not corporate copy, Editorial SEO.
  • If you can already program a bit and you like the idea of working with real public data (councils, courts, planning), Civic Tech.
  • If you're a researcher at heart, you notice when a phone number is fake, and you'd rather verify ten things than write one paragraph, Directory Data.
  • If you're between two, mention both in your application. We'll match you to whichever cohort role fits best.

Reference criteria — the same for every track

Tracks differ in what you ship. They don't differ in what earns the reference. To graduate with a public reference at builtinireland.ie/references/<you> you complete the following:

  • Four shipped issues over the four weeks of your cohort. "Shipped" means in production, reviewed, accepted.
  • Four weekly check-ins. If life intervenes for a week we work around it; consistent silence ends the reference path.
  • Mentor sign-off. One-click yes/no after week four.
  • A two-paragraph self-reflection. Becomes the basis for the letter text.

See what a Built In Ireland reference letter looks like →