LLM Engineering - Production Systems for the Agentic Era: Fine-Tuning, RAG, Agents, and LLMOps

By Helga karl

Instead of focusing on isolated techniques, this book gives you a complete systems-level approach-combining fine-tuning, retrieval, agents, and LLMOps into one cohesive engineering discipline.

Inside, you'll learn how to: Design LLM systems that work reliably beyond the "happy path"Choose between prompting, RAG, and fine-tuning with clear decision frameworksBuild scalable inference pipelines with predictable latency and costFine-tune models efficiently using LoRA, QLoRA, and modern alignment methodsImplement retrieval systems that actually improve accuracy (not just complexity)Architect agent systems that can plan, act, and recover from failureEvaluate LLM outputs with rigorous, production-ready metricsOptimize performance across cost, latency, and quality trade-offsDeploy, monitor, and maintain LLM systems using real LLMOps practices
Along the way, you'll build/create: A model routing system that dynamically selects the cheapest model for each taskA complete fine-tuning pipeline with evaluation and deploymentA production-grade RAG system with hybrid retrieval and re-rankingA multi-agent system with tool use and orchestrationA full LLM production stack deployed with observability, guardrails, and CI/CD

This book is for software engineers, ML engineers, AI practitioners, and technical leaders who are moving from experimentation to real-world deployment.

If you already understand the basics of LLMs but struggle with reliability, scaling, or system design-this is the missing piece.

What sets this book apart:

It focuses on production systems, not toy examplesIt provides end-to-end architecture, not isolated techniquesIt emphasizes engineering trade-offs and decision-making, not hype

By the time you finish the book, you would have learned how LLMs work- how to ship them, scale them, and trust them in production.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GXF29Q55
• ISBN13: 9798257524363
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 404 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.5" x 9.3"