Every Built In Ireland candidate has spent four to six weeks shipping real work on a real Irish website, under a mentor, with a verified reference. You're not gambling on a CV any more — you're hiring someone who has already proven the loop. Post a role free, pay only when someone starts.
/references/
The standard Irish hiring loop — JD posted, ATS filters, three rounds of interviews, take-home, panel — burns about six weeks and tells you very little about whether the person can actually do the job. Most rejections come down to "felt off in the interview", which is a bad signal at scale.
Built In Ireland inverts that. Every candidate you see here has already done four to six weeks of mentored, code-reviewed, shipped work on a live Irish site. Their reference letter names the project, the dates, the contributions and the impact — and the public verifiable URL at builtinireland.ie/references/<name> means it's not just our word for it.
You can read what they shipped in fifteen minutes. That's a stronger signal than any interview round.
A wider mix than a normal job board — because the path in is shipping, not credentials.
Computer science, design and product grads who have already taken a real ticket to production. The "no commercial experience" gap is closed before you meet them.
People cut from Meta, Stripe, Intercom, Workday and similar who've stayed sharp by mentoring or shipping on The Forge while interviewing. Ready to move on day one.
Parents, carers, people coming back after illness — with a fresh, dated reference and recent shipped work, not a five-year gap.
People with international qualifications and now a local Irish work reference. Bridges the "Irish employers don't know what to make of your degree" problem in one cohort.
Someone moving into tech, marketing, or product from another field — with a real cohort completion in the new field. No three-year college detour required.
Builders, makers, and side-project people whose hobby work now has a public reference and a portfolio. Often the most motivated hire on the shortlist.
Free to post. Pay only when someone starts. No exclusivity, no long contracts, no per-seat fees.
Not the job title — the problem. "We need help shipping a marketing site by August" or "we need someone who can move a data pipeline off legacy infra". We work back from outcomes.
Each with their shipped work, their reference letter, and the verifiable URL. Read what they actually did. Pick who you want to talk to. Saves you 50 applications worth of reading.
Direct intro. No middleman. Run whatever process you normally run. We're not in the loop after the intro is made.
First five hires through Built In Ireland are free while we're getting started. After that a flat success fee of 8% of first-year base, payable on start date. Cancellable for cause.
The Forge is our cooperative-project programme. Members spend four weeks shipping real features on real Irish sites — localnews.ie, pubhub.ie, myid.ie and others — under a mentor's eye. They merge code, fix bugs, write documentation, get reviewed.
By the time their reference is issued, they've already done the work most employers spend three rounds of interviews trying to test for. That's why a Forge graduate is a different kind of hire from a CV-and-pray candidate.
Want to sponsor a cohort? You can. Pick a project that solves a problem you'd happily pay for, and a cohort works on it for four to eight weeks. You see who shipped what. First dibs on hiring at the end.
If the candidate is on the right scheme, the State pays the wage and you get the contribution. The full guide lives in our blog. The short version:
6 months, 30 hours/week. The State pays the wage. You provide the placement, supervision and a real role. Good fit for someone career-changing into your sector with a Forge reference in hand.
Part-time, 19.5 hours/week, 1–3 years. Better fit for community / not-for-profit roles than commercial hires, but the conversion rate to permanent work is strong.
12 months of community work placement. Selected from the Live Register rather than directly applied for — useful where you have an ongoing programme rather than a one-off role.
The Civil Service ARC programme has had a 100% conversion rate to permanent so far. Corporate returnships from Deloitte and similar follow a comparable model. Useful template if you want to build your own.
We can match a candidate to the right scheme during intro — saves you reading 12 government PDFs.
Two co-signers because one signature is easier to fake than two. Every Built In Ireland reference is signed by both.
Irish design studio that builds and operates a portfolio of 50+ live .ie sites. Founded by Kali, who mentors the cohorts directly. Real letterhead, real email, easy to contact.
Counter-signs every reference. Maintains the public register at builtinireland.ie/references/. References cannot be edited after issue — change history is in git.
Every reference has a unique ID (e.g. BII-2026-001) and a public URL. Sample reference here — same format every one of your hires will have.