Where on the ladder are you?
- Demo — prompt is an inline string; outputs look good on examples.
- Working — prompt is in a file; basic eval set exists; one model, no fallback.
- Reliable — versioned prompts; CI eval gate; logging; rollback flag; primary model with fallback.
- Operated — full telemetry; cost dashboards; rollouts canaried; incident runbook practiced; eval-mining pipeline turning failures into test cases.
- Engineered — multi-provider adapter; per-request routing; cost-quality-latency reporting; red-team eval suite; quarterly prompt rewrites; documented invariants.
How to climb
Each rung is a quarter or two of work. You don't need to be at "Engineered" everywhere; match each system to the cost of failure. A marketing-copy generator can live at Working. A refund-decisioning agent should be at Operated or Engineered.
Where this quest leaves you
If you completed every track and exercise, you have the parts list for Engineered. The remaining work is wiring them to your specific system, and it never quite ends — these systems are alive, the providers move, and the threats evolve. Welcome to the ongoing job.