AI for Builders
Rafael Ortega
Write the job as a contract
Collect twenty ugly examples
Score before you tune
AI for Builders
31 days to specify, evaluate and ship useful AI
Expert #31 Rafael Ortega
Leave with a task contract, an eval set and a system you can defend.
- paperback
- en / es
- 208
- August 2026
Why this book?
Most AI disappointment is a specification failure wearing a model’s face. This book trains the unglamorous skills: writing the job, collecting examples, scoring outputs, and refusing magic language.
What you’ll get
- 30 insights with exercises you can run on real work.
- Special Edition by Rafael Ortega, including The Top 10.
- A one-page eval sheet you can copy.
Rafael Ortega
Rafael Ortega
Artificial Intelligence
Rafael designs AI workflows for product teams that cannot afford theatre. He has shipped evaluation harnesses, retrieval systems and internal copilots for companies that needed the work to survive a Monday standup. 31 Experts selected him for a rare combination: technical literacy and contempt for magic language.
Rafael OrtegaInside the book
Write the job as a contract
Inputs, outputs, constraints, failures. If any is missing, you are prompting in the dark.
Collect twenty ugly examples
Demos use clean text. Production uses whatever people typed.
Score before you tune
A rubric turns arguments into measurements.
One variable at a time
If you change the model, the prompt and the data together, you learn nothing.
Name a human owner
Supervision is a role, not a vibe.
The Top 10
If you could give just one piece of advice to someone starting out in this discipline, what would it be?
Start with a task a careful intern could finish in twenty minutes.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in your career, and how did you overcome it?
A demo that could not survive messy real data. I learned to collect the mess first.
What is the most important “Never do this…” rule in your discipline?
Never ship a prompt you cannot evaluate.
Who inspired or mentored you, and what did you learn from them?
A statistician who asked “compared to what?” until it hurt.
What is the biggest discovery you wish you had known on day one?
The bottleneck is specification, not access to models.
What readers will learn
- How to write a task a model can complete.
- How to evaluate without a research lab.
- When not to use a model at all.
Readers
“We cancelled a chatbot and shipped a classifier. That was the win.”
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Eval-first Prompt Pack
Task contracts and scoring sheets to accompany AI for Builders.
FAQ
- What is a Special Edition?
- Every 31 Experts book contains 30 curated insights plus a mandatory Expert #31 section: About the Expert and The Top 10. Optional Part III is the Expert’s Playbook.
- How long does it take to read?
- The format is built for 31 days: one idea a day, with a task attached. You can also read it in a sitting.
- What formats are available?
- Paperback is the standard object. Ebook follows. Audiobook and signed copies appear when the edition supports them.
AI for Builders
Leave with a task contract, an eval set and a system you can defend.