Max Donets
Author

Max Donets

Backend engineer (12y), turned AI builder. Author of The PROMPT — a 70,000-word novel I directed without writing a sentence. Based in Munich.

I wrote a book about AI — using AI — to prove a point.

When the conversation about AI at work shifted from "interesting experiment" to "your job might be next," I noticed something most people missed: the people thriving weren't the engineers or the tech leads. They were the communicators. The ones who knew how to ask the right question in the right way.

Prompt engineering — the skill everyone suddenly needed — turned out to be less about syntax and more about clarity of thought. It's the same skill good writers, good managers, and good teachers have always had. It just had a new name.

I wanted to teach that skill in a way that actually sticks. Not a tutorial. Not a listicle. A story — because we remember stories long after we forget frameworks. So I wrote one. And I wrote it entirely with Claude Opus, because the book should be its own proof of concept.

The work behind the words.

I'm a backend engineer. Twelve years writing the systems no one sees. Now I build AI agents — production systems that direct LLMs the way I used to direct microservices. The PROMPT came out of that work. The skill that mattered most wasn't technical — it was knowing how to ask the right question. Hanna is what that skill looks like in someone who isn't an engineer. Munich is where I write.

70k
Words in The PROMPT — a full-length business novel
29
Chapters following Hanna over 13 weeks in Munich
100%
Written in collaboration with Claude Opus — transparent by design

Where the twelve years come from.

2025 — today
ValorHub — founder & author, Munich

Built the four-agent pipeline that wrote The PROMPT. Advise companies on which AI is worth running — and which isn't.

2025 — today
Freelance AI & automation consultant

Working with small and mid-size businesses on where automation genuinely takes work off their plate — and where it doesn't.

2019 — today
ifap Service-Institut für Ärzte und Apotheker — senior backend engineer, Munich

Seven years building the software German doctors' practices and pharmacies rely on every day.

2017 — 2019
AGT International — senior backend engineer, Darmstadt
2012 — 2017
V.I.Tech — software developer, then technical lead, Ukraine
2008 — 2012
Market-Service — electronics engineer, Ukraine

Started out repairing cash registers and fuel-station electronics — the machines small businesses actually run on. I've been on the owner's side of the counter.

BSc in computer software engineering. Based in Munich since 2019.

The PROMPT — a business novel about AI.

Hanna is a support agent at a car rental company in Munich. When a mandatory all-hands meeting lands on her calendar on a Monday, she doesn't panic — she starts asking better questions. What follows is a story about communication, not technology.

Learn more about the book
THE
PROMPT
AI is just a tool.
The difference is you.

Let's talk.

Curious about the book, prompt engineering, or the writing process? Find me online.