Breaking into AI: The Ultimate Interview

Playbook

Rath Shetty, Founder, RoboLex©

December 24, 2024

2
 Breaking into AI: The Ultimate
Interview Playbook

©
Copyright 2024 by Rath Shetty

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic
or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain
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please contact the author at:
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.robolex.ai

First Edition: 2024

ISBN: 9798304658126

Disclaimer:
The information in this book is provided on an “as is” basis without any rep-
resentations or warranties. While every effort has been made to ensure the
accuracy and completeness of the contents, the author and publisher are not re-
sponsible for errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this
information. Readers are encouraged to verify all information independently.

Published by: Author

ii
Preface

The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is undergo-
ing a transformative revolution, shaping industries and redefining the future of
work. As Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT, BERT, and their succes-
sors continue to push the boundaries of innovation, the demand for skilled AI
and ML professionals has reached unprecedented heights. This revolution repre-
sents not just technological advancement but a paradigm shift in how businesses,
governments, and individuals interact with data and automation.
The exponential growth of AI technologies is creating opportunities that
were once the realm of science fiction. From autonomous systems and natural
language processing to predictive analytics and decision intelligence, the ap-
plications of AI and ML are permeating every industry, including healthcare,
finance, transportation, education, and entertainment. This rapid evolution un-
derscores the need for professionals who can not only keep up with the pace of
change but also lead and innovate in this dynamic landscape.
Breaking into AI: The Ultimate Interview Playbook is designed to
bridge the gap between aspiring professionals and the rigorous expectations of
top-tier companies. This book is tailored to equip candidates with the knowl-
edge, strategies, and confidence to excel in interviews for roles in AI, ML, and
data science. With a focus on both foundational principles and cutting-edge
advancements, this playbook serves as a comprehensive guide to navigate the
competitive hiring landscape.
The importance of a structured resource like this cannot be overstated. As
industries undergo an AI-driven metamorphosis, organizations are seeking talent
capable of designing robust algorithms, interpreting complex data, and deploy-
ing scalable solutions. This playbook addresses not only the technical aspects
but also the strategic thinking and problem-solving skills required to stand out
in the hiring process.
Whether you are a recent graduate stepping into the world of AI, a seasoned
professional pivoting into this domain, or a researcher transitioning into industry
roles, this book is crafted to support your journey. The future belongs to those
who can harness the power of AI and ML, and this playbook is your companion
in unlocking those opportunities.
We stand at the cusp of a major revolution, and the talent entering this field
will shape the next chapter of technological history. With this playbook, we
hope to inspire and empower the next generation of AI pioneers.

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iv
Contents

1 General ML and AI Concepts 5

1.1 Review of Core Concepts in Machine Learning and Artificial In-
telligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.1 Overview of Artificial Intelligence (AI) . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.2 Fundamentals of Machine Learning (ML) . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.3 Core Concepts in Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 Explain overfitting and underfitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.2 Overfitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.3 Example of Overfitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.4 Underfitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.5 Example of Underfitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.6 Addressing Overfitting and Underfitting . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.7 Illustrative Example: Predicting House Prices . . . . . . . 11
1.3 What are the differences between supervised, unsupervised, and
reinforcement learning? Provide examples of where each is used. 12
1.3.1 Supervised Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3.2 Unsupervised Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.3 Reinforcement Learning (RL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.4 Detailed Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4 What evaluation metrics would you use for a classification model?
How would you handle imbalanced datasets? . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.4.1 Common Evaluation Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.5 Handling Imbalanced Datasets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.5.1 Metrics for Imbalanced Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5.2 Strategies to Handle Imbalanced Data . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5.3 Illustrative Example: Fraud Detection . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.6 Explain the difference between generative and discriminative mod-
els. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.6.1 Generative Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.6.2 Discriminative Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.6.3 Comparison Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.6.4 Detailed Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.6.5 When to Use Generative vs. Discriminative Models . . . . 25

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1.6.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.6.7 Implementation Examples of Generative and Discrimina-
tive Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.7 How do you select features for your model? . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.7.1 Why Feature Selection is Important . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.7.2 Feature Selection Techniques with Examples . . . . . . . 30
1.7.3 Practical Example: Feature Selection Workflow . . . . . . 33
1.7.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.8 Describe the trade-offs between bias and variance. . . . . . . . . 34
1.8.1 What is Bias? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.8.2 What is Variance? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.8.3 Bias-Variance Trade-off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1.8.4 Error Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1.8.5 Examples of Bias and Variance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1.8.6 Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.8.7 Practical Example: Polynomial Regression . . . . . . . . . 36
1.8.8 Strategies to Manage Bias-Variance Trade-off . . . . . . . 37
1.8.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.9 What is a confusion matrix? How is it used? . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.9.1 Structure of a Confusion Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.9.2 Key Metrics Derived from a Confusion Matrix . . . . . . 39
1.9.3 Example: Predicting Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.9.4 How the Confusion Matrix is Used . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.9.5 Code Example: Confusion Matrix in Python . . . . . . . 40
1.9.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
1.10 Explain Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and its applications. 42
1.10.1 How PCA Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1.10.2 Key Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1.10.3 Mathematical Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1.10.4 Applications of PCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.10.5 Advantages and Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.10.6 Code Example: PCA for Dimensionality Reduction . . . 44
1.10.7 Intuition with a Simple Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.10.8 Practical Use Case: Image Compression . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.10.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
1.11 What are some techniques to handle missing or corrupted data? 46
1.11.1 Techniques to Handle Missing or Corrupted Data . . . . . 46
1.11.2 Handling Corrupted Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1.11.3 Real-World Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1.11.4 Choosing the Right Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1.11.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1.12 Describe the difference between bagging and boosting. . . . . . . 50
1.12.1 Bagging (Bootstrap Aggregating) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1.12.2 Boosting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.12.3 Key Differences Between Bagging and Boosting . . . . . . 52
1.12.4 Practical Example: Comparison on the Same Dataset . . 53
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1.12.5 Applications of Bagging and Boosting . . . . . . . . . . . 54

1.12.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

2 Deep Learning and Neural Networks 55

2.1 Core Concepts of Deep Learning and Neural Networks . . . . . . 55
2.1.1 Introduction to Neural Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.1.2 Deep Learning Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.1.3 Training Neural Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.1.4 Overfitting and Regularization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.1.5 Applications of Deep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.2 What is the vanishing gradient problem, and how do you mitigate
it? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.2.1 Why Does It Happen? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.2.2 Real-World Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.2.3 Techniques to Mitigate the Vanishing Gradient Problem . 59
2.2.4 Real-World Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.2.5 Summary of Techniques to Mitigate Vanishing Gradients 61
2.3 Explain the differences between convolutional neural networks
(CNNs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and transformers. . 61
2.3.1 Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.3.2 Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.3.3 Transformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.3.4 Key Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.4 How does batch normalization work, and why is it used? . . . . . 65
2.4.1 How Batch Normalization Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.4.2 Why is Batch Normalization Used? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.4.3 Where Batch Normalization is Applied . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.4.4 Example Code: Batch Normalization in a Neural Network 67
2.4.5 Example: Without vs. With Batch Normalization . . . . 68
2.4.6 Batch Normalization in Convolutional Neural Networks . 68
2.4.7 Key Considerations When Using Batch Normalization . . 70
2.4.8 Advantages of Batch Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.4.9 Disadvantages of Batch Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.4.10 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.5 What are the different types of activation functions, and when
should you use them? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.5.1 Types of Activation Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.5.2 Comparison of Activation Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.6 Explain the architecture of ResNet and why skip connections are
beneficial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.6.1 Why ResNet? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.6.2 ResNet Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
2.6.3 Benefits of Skip Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.6.4 Code Example: ResNet Implementation . . . . . . . . . . 78
2.6.5 Applications of ResNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
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2.6.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.7 What is attention in neural networks, and how is it implemented? 79
2.7.1 Why Use Attention? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.7.2 How Attention Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.7.3 Types of Attention Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.7.4 Scaled Dot-Product Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.7.5 Multi-Head Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.7.6 Implementation Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.7.7 Applications of Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.7.8 Advantages of Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.7.9 Summary of Key Attention Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.8 Describe the concept of dropout in deep learning. How does it
help in preventing overfitting? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.8.1 What is Dropout? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.8.2 How Dropout Helps Prevent Overfitting . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.8.3 Dropout Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.8.4 Code Example: Dropout in Keras . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.8.5 Dropout Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2.8.6 Effects of Dropout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
2.8.7 Real-World Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
2.8.8 Visualization of Dropout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
2.8.9 When to Use Dropout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.8.10 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.9 Explain the role of optimizers like Adam, SGD, and RMSprop. . 87
2.9.1 Key Optimizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.9.2 Comparison of Optimizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
2.9.3 Practical Example: MNIST Classification . . . . . . . . . 90
2.9.4 Key Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
2.9.5 Choosing the Right Optimizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
2.9.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

3 LLM-Specific Questions 93
3.1 Core Concepts of Large Language Models (LLMs) . . . . . . . . 93
3.1.1 Key Features of Large Language Models . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.1.2 Transformer Architecture: The Foundation of LLMs . . . 94
3.1.3 Training Objectives for LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.1.4 Fine-Tuning LLMs for Specific Applications . . . . . . . . 95
3.1.5 Challenges in Training and Using LLMs . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.1.6 Applications of LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.2 How does the transformer architecture work? Explain key com-
ponents like self-attention and multi-head attention. . . . . . . . 96
3.2.1 Overview of the Transformer Architecture . . . . . . . . . 96
3.2.2 Key Components of the Transformer . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.2.3 Example Code for Transformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
3.2.4 Applications of Transformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.2.5 Advantages of Transformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
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3.2.6 Summary of Key Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

3.3 What are the differences between GPT, BERT, and T5? . . . . . 100
3.3.1 GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) . . . . . . . . 100
3.3.2 BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Trans-
formers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3.3.3 T5 (Text-to-Text Transfer Transformer) . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.3.4 Comparison Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.3.5 When to Use Each Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.3.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.4 How do you fine-tune a pre-trained language model for a specific
task? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.4.1 Steps for Fine-Tuning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.4.2 Fine-Tuning Example: Sentiment Analysis with BERT . . 105
3.4.3 Fine-Tuning Example: Text Summarization with T5 . . . 106
3.4.4 Best Practices for Fine-Tuning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.4.5 Comparison of Fine-Tuning for Common Tasks . . . . . . 109
3.4.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.5 What are the advantages of using embeddings, and how are they
generated in models like Word2Vec or BERT? . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.5.1 Advantages of Embeddings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.5.2 Generating Embeddings in Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.5.3 Applications of Word Embeddings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.5.4 Advanced Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
3.5.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
3.6 Explain tokenization and the differences between subword tok-
enization techniques like Byte Pair Encoding (BPE) and Senten-
cePiece. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.6.1 Why Tokenization? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.6.2 Subword Tokenization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.6.3 Byte Pair Encoding (BPE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.6.4 SentencePiece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
3.6.5 Comparison: BPE vs. SentencePiece . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
3.6.6 Applications of Subword Tokenization . . . . . . . . . . . 116
3.6.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.7 What challenges arise in training large language models, and how
do frameworks like DeepSpeed or Megatron-LM help? . . . . . . 117
3.7.1 Challenges in Training LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.7.2 How DeepSpeed and Megatron-LM Help . . . . . . . . . . 118
3.7.3 Key Techniques Used by These Frameworks . . . . . . . . 120
3.7.4 Practical Example: Training a Large Transformer . . . . 120
3.7.5 Summary of Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
3.7.6 Challenges Still to Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
3.8 How do you evaluate the performance of LLMs? . . . . . . . . . 122
3.8.1 Evaluation Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.8.2 Key Metrics for Evaluating LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.8.3 Task-Specific Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
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3.8.4 Benchmarks for LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

3.8.5 Summary of Metrics and Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
3.9 What are prompt engineering and in-context learning? Provide
examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.9.1 What is Prompt Engineering? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.9.2 What is In-Context Learning? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3.9.3 Prompt Engineering vs. In-Context Learning . . . . . . . 128
3.9.4 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
3.9.5 Practical Example: Using OpenAI’s GPT API . . . . . . 129
3.9.6 Benefits and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.9.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.10 Explain the difference between zero-shot, one-shot, and few-shot
learning in the context of LLMs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.10.1 Zero-Shot Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.10.2 One-Shot Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
3.10.3 Few-Shot Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
3.10.4 Comparison Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
3.10.5 Code Examples Using OpenAI GPT-3 . . . . . . . . . . . 133
3.10.6 Advantages and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
3.10.7 When to Use Each Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
3.10.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
3.11 How do models like ChatGPT manage context windows, and
what are the trade-offs of limited token lengths? . . . . . . . . . 135
3.11.1 Context Windows in Language Models . . . . . . . . . . . 136
3.11.2 Trade-Offs of Limited Token Lengths . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
3.11.3 Strategies to Manage Context Windows . . . . . . . . . . 137
3.11.4 Examples of Context Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
3.11.5 How ChatGPT Manages Context in Conversations . . . . 138
3.11.6 Applications of Larger Context Windows . . . . . . . . . 138
3.11.7 Summary of Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
3.11.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

4 Applied and Scenario-Based Questions 141

4.1 Core Concepts in Building and Deploying AI, ML, and LLM Ap-
plications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
4.1.1 Data Collection and Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
4.1.2 Model Selection and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.1.3 Model Evaluation and Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.1.4 Deployment and Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.1.5 Ethical and Societal Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
4.1.6 Case Study: Large Language Model Deployment . . . . . 143
4.2 Describe a project where you applied ML/AI to solve a real-world
problem. What challenges did you face? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
4.2.1 Project: Contract Analysis and Risk Identification System 144
4.2.2 Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
4.2.3 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
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4.2.4 Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

4.2.5 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
4.2.6 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.2.7 Tools and Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.2.8 Key Learnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.3 How would you design an ML model for a recommendation system?147
4.4 Building a Recommendation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.4.1 Types of Recommendation Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.4.2 Example: Building a Movie Recommendation System . . 147
4.4.3 Step-by-Step Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.4.4 Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
4.4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
4.5 Given a dataset with millions of entries, how would you prepro-
cess it for a machine learning pipeline? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
4.6 Preprocessing Large Datasets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
4.6.1 Handling Scalability and Performance Challenges . . . . . 154
4.6.2 Example End-to-End Preprocessing Pipeline . . . . . . . 154
4.6.3 Key Considerations for Preprocessing Large Datasets . . . 155
4.7 If your model has a 95% accuracy but performs poorly on certain
subsets of data, how would you debug and fix it? . . . . . . . . . 155
4.7.1 Step-by-Step Debugging Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
4.7.2 Fixing the Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4.7.3 Evaluate the Fixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
4.7.4 Summary Table of Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
4.8 How would you implement a chatbot using LLMs like GPT-4? . 160
4.9 Building a Chatbot with GPT-4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
4.9.1 High-Level Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
4.9.2 Tools and Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
4.9.3 Step-by-Step Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
4.9.4 Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
4.9.5 Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
4.9.6 Example Use Case: Legal Tech Chatbot . . . . . . . . . . 164
4.9.7 Advanced Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
4.9.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
4.10 Design an ML pipeline for anomaly detection in a large-scale time
series dataset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
4.11 Anomaly Detection in Time Series Datasets . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
4.11.1 Key Components of the Pipeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
4.11.2 Step-by-Step Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
4.11.3 Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
4.11.4 Complete Pipeline Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
4.11.5 Summary of Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
4.12 How would you ensure the ethical use of AI in a project? . . . . 169
4.12.1 Key Principles of Ethical AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
4.12.2 Steps to Ensure Ethical AI Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
4.12.3 Example Use Case: Ethical AI in a Legal Tech Application172
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4.12.4 Challenges and Mitigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

4.12.5 Ethical AI Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
4.13 If you’re deploying an LLM-based service, how would you handle
latency and cost concerns? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
4.13.1 Challenges in LLM Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
4.13.2 Strategies for Reducing Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
4.13.3 Strategies for Reducing Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
4.13.4 Hybrid Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
4.13.5 Monitoring and Continuous Optimization . . . . . . . . . 177
4.13.6 Practical Example: Building a Scalable Chatbot . . . . . 177
4.13.7 Summary of Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

5 Math and Algorithm-Heavy Questions 179

5.1 Introduction to Key Mathematics and Algorithms Behind AI,
ML, and LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.1.1 Linear Algebra: The Language of Data . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.1.2 Calculus: The Basis for Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.1.3 Probability and Statistics: Managing Uncertainty . . . . . 180
5.1.4 Optimization Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.1.5 Core Algorithms in AI, ML, and LLMs . . . . . . . . . . 181
5.1.6 Dimensionality Reduction Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . 182
5.1.7 Mathematical Foundations in LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
5.1.8 Challenges and Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
5.2 Derive the gradient descent update rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5.2.1 Problem Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5.2.2 Goal of Gradient Descent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5.2.3 Derivation of the Update Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5.2.4 Example: Linear Regression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5.2.5 Gradient Descent Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5.2.6 Python Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5.2.7 Convergence Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
5.2.8 Variants of Gradient Descent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
5.2.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
5.3 What is the difference between L1 and L2 regularization? How
do they impact models? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
5.3.1 L1 Regularization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
5.3.2 L2 Regularization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
5.3.3 Differences Between L1 and L2 Regularization . . . . . . 187
5.3.4 Combined Use: Elastic Net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
5.3.5 Geometric Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
5.3.6 Practical Impact on Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
5.3.7 Python Example: Comparing L1 and L2 . . . . . . . . . 188
5.3.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
5.4 Explain KL divergence and its role in variational autoencoders. . 189
5.4.1 What is KL Divergence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
5.4.2 Key Properties of KL Divergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
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5.4.3 Role of KL Divergence in Variational Autoencoders (VAEs)190

5.4.4 Example of KL Divergence in a VAE . . . . . . . . . . . 190
5.4.5 Visualizing KL Divergence in VAEs . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
5.4.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
5.5 What are eigenvalues and eigenvectors? How are they used in ML?192
5.5.1 What are Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors? . . . . . . . . . 192
5.5.2 Intuition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
5.5.3 Applications in Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
5.5.4 Key Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
5.5.5 Practical Example: PCA Visualization . . . . . . . . . . 195
5.5.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
5.6 Describe the workings of k-means clustering. What are its limi-
tations? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
5.6.1 Steps in K-Means Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
5.6.2 Mathematical Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
5.6.3 Example: K-Means in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
5.6.4 Advantages of K-Means Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
5.6.5 Limitations of K-Means Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
5.6.6 Practical Use Cases of K-Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
5.6.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
5.7 How does stochastic gradient descent differ from standard gradi-
ent descent? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
5.7.1 Standard Gradient Descent (GD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
5.7.2 Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
5.7.3 Mini-Batch Gradient Descent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
5.7.4 Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
5.7.5 Example in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
5.7.6 Practical Example: Visualizing the Differences . . . . . . 203
5.7.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

6 System Design and Engineering for AI 207

6.1 How would you design a scalable ML system for real-time predic-
tions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
6.1.1 Key Components of a Real-Time ML System . . . . . . . 207
6.1.2 Steps to Design the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
6.1.3 Example: End-to-End Scalable ML System . . . . . . . . 210
6.1.4 Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
6.1.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
6.2 What challenges do you foresee in deploying LLMs in production?
How would you address them? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
6.3 Deploying Large Language Models (LLMs) in Production . . . . 213
6.3.1 Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
6.3.2 Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
6.3.3 Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
6.3.4 Model Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
6.3.5 Security and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
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6.3.6 Interpretability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

6.3.7 Ethical and Bias Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
6.3.8 Challenges in Updating Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
6.3.9 Monitoring and Observability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
6.3.10 Summary of Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . 218
6.4 How do you handle versioning for ML models in a CI/CD pipeline?218
6.4.1 Why is Model Versioning Important? . . . . . . . . . . . 218
6.4.2 Model Versioning Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
6.4.3 CI/CD Pipeline for Model Versioning . . . . . . . . . . . 219
6.4.4 Example: End-to-End Versioning in a CI/CD Pipeline . 221
6.4.5 Tools for Model Versioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
6.4.6 Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
6.4.7 Example Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
6.5 Explain the architecture of a distributed training setup for large
models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
6.5.1 Key Components of Distributed Training . . . . . . . . . 224
6.5.2 Distributed Training Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
6.5.3 Distributed Training Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
6.5.4 Communication Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
6.5.5 Infrastructure for Distributed Training . . . . . . . . . . 227
6.5.6 Example End-to-End Distributed Training . . . . . . . . 227
6.5.7 Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
6.5.8 Monitoring and Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
6.5.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
6.6 How would you deploy and monitor an LLM-based API at scale? 228
6.6.1 Key Considerations for Deploying an LLM-Based API . . 228
6.6.2 Architecture for Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
6.6.3 Deployment Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
6.6.4 Optimizing LLM Inference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
6.6.5 Monitoring the LLM API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
6.6.6 Handling Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
6.6.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

7 Ethics, Fairness, and Bias 235

7.1 Introduction to Ethics, Fairness, and Bias in AI Systems . . . . . 235
7.1.1 Why Ethics in AI Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
7.1.2 Understanding Fairness in AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
7.1.3 Bias in AI Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
7.1.4 Strategies to Mitigate Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
7.1.5 Ethics, Fairness, and Bias in LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
7.1.6 The Future of Ethical AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
7.2 How would you identify and mitigate biases in your ML models? 238
7.2.1 Types of Bias in Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
7.2.2 Steps to Identify Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
7.2.3 Steps to Mitigate Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
7.2.4 Monitoring Bias in Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
CONTENTS xv

7.2.5 Example: Bias Mitigation Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

7.2.6 Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
7.2.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
7.3 What steps would you take to ensure your AI system is explainable?242
7.3.1 Why is Explainability Important? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
7.3.2 Steps to Ensure Explainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
7.3.3 Example Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
7.3.4 Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
7.4.2 Implementation Example: Mitigation Workflow . . . . . 248
7.4.3 Summary of Risks and Mitigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
7.5 How do you handle adversarial attacks in ML models? . . . . . . 248
7.5.1 Types of Adversarial Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
7.5.2 Strategies to Mitigate Adversarial Attacks . . . . . . . . 249
7.5.3 Workflow for Adversarial Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
7.5.4 Tools for Handling Adversarial Attacks . . . . . . . . . . 252
7.5.5 Real-World Example: Adversarial Attack on Image Clas-
sifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
7.5.6 Challenges in Mitigating Adversarial Attacks . . . . . . . 253
7.5.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
7.6 What are your thoughts on responsible AI practices? . . . . . . . 253
7.6.1 Key Principles of Responsible AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
7.6.2 Practical Implementation of Responsible AI . . . . . . . 256
7.6.3 Challenges in Implementing Responsible AI . . . . . . . 256
7.6.4 Example Use Case: Responsible AI in Healthcare . . . . 257
7.6.5 Industry Examples of Responsible AI Practices . . . . . . 258
7.6.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

8 Behavioral Questions 259

8.1 Handling Behavioral Questions for AI/ML/LLM Roles . . . . . . 259
8.1.1 Understanding the Purpose of Behavioral Questions . . . 259
8.1.2 Key Behavioral Questions and How to Approach Them . 260
8.1.3 Preparing for Behavioral Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
8.2 Example Behavioral Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
8.2.1 Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
8.3 How do you stay up to date with advancements in AI/ML? . . . 291
8.3.1 Follow Research Papers and Publications . . . . . . . . . 291
8.3.2 Engage with Online Courses and Tutorials . . . . . . . . 291
8.3.3 Participate in AI/ML Communities and Forums . . . . . 292
8.3.4 Attend Conferences and Webinars . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
8.3.5 Follow Influencers and Blogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
8.3.6 Explore Open-Source Tools and Frameworks . . . . . . . 292
8.3.7 Stay Updated with Newsletters and Podcasts . . . . . . . 292
8.3.8 Collaborate and Contribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
8.3.9 Continuous Experimentation and Learning . . . . . . . . 293
8.3.10 Example Workflow for Staying Updated . . . . . . . . . . 293
8.3.11 The Project: Predicting Customer Churn . . . . . . . . . 293
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8.3.12 The Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

8.3.13 Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
8.3.14 Impact of the Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
8.3.15 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
8.4 How do you collaborate with cross-functional teams (e.g., prod-
uct, engineering, business)? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
8.4.1 Understanding Team Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
8.4.2 Communication and Shared Language . . . . . . . . . . . 296
8.4.3 Collaborative Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
8.4.4 Iterative Development and Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . 296
8.4.5 Translating Business Goals into Technical Objectives . . 297
8.4.6 Education and Knowledge Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
8.4.7 Challenges and Solutions in Cross-Functional Collaboration297
8.4.8 Summary of Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
8.5 What do you think is the future of LLMs and AI? . . . . . . . . 298
8.5.1 Increased Specialization of LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
8.5.2 Democratization of AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
8.5.3 Enhanced Explainability and Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
8.5.4 Multimodal AI Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
8.5.5 Ethical and Responsible AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
8.5.6 Real-Time and Low-Latency AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
8.5.7 AI and Human Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
8.5.8 General Artificial Intelligence (AGI) and Ethical Challenges300
8.5.9 Sustainability in AI Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
8.5.10 Summary of Future Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

9 Preparation Tips 303

9.0.1 Key Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
9.0.2 Example: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
9.0.3 Case Study: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
9.1 Review Papers Like the Original BERT, GPT, and Transformer
Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
9.1.1 Key Papers to Review: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
9.1.2 Example Insight: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
9.2 Brush Up on Coding Skills, Especially for ML-Related Algo-
rithms or Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
9.2.1 Key Skills to Practice: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
9.2.2 Example Exercise: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
9.3 Practice Solving ML Engineering Challenges, Including System
Design Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
9.3.1 Key Areas to Focus On: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
9.3.2 Example Challenge: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
9.3.3 Example System Diagram: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
9.3.4 Practice Resources: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
CONTENTS xvii

10 Primer on Probability, Counting, and Distributions 311

10.1 Introduction to Probability Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
10.1.1 Counting Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
10.1.2 Probability Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
10.1.3 Uniform Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
10.1.4 Probability Density Function (PDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
10.1.5 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 313
10.1.6 Graphs for PDF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
10.1.7 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
10.1.8 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
10.1.9 Normal Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
10.1.10 Probability Density Function (PDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
10.1.11 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 315
10.1.12 Graphs of PDF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
10.1.13 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
10.1.14 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
10.1.15 Bernoulli Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
10.1.16 Probability Mass Function (PMF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
10.1.17 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 318
10.1.18 Graphs of PMF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
10.1.19 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
10.1.20 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
10.1.21 Binomial Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
10.1.22 Probability Mass Function (PMF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
10.1.23 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 320
10.1.24 Graphs of PMF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
10.1.25 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
10.1.26 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
10.1.27 Poisson Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
10.1.28 Probability Mass Function (PMF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
10.1.29 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 322
10.1.30 Graphs of PMF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
10.1.31 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
10.1.32 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
10.1.33 Exponential Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
10.1.34 Probability Density Function (PDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
10.1.35 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 324
10.1.36 Graphs of PDF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
10.1.37 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
10.1.38 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
10.1.39 Geometric Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
10.1.40 Probability Mass Function (PMF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
10.1.41 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 326
10.1.42 Graphs of PMF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
10.1.43 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
10.1.44 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
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10.1.45 Geometric Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

10.1.46 Probability Mass Function (PMF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
10.1.47 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 328
10.1.48 Graphs of PMF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
10.1.49 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
10.1.50 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
10.1.51 Gamma Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
10.1.52 Probability Density Function (PDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
10.1.53 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 330
10.1.54 Graphs of PDF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
10.1.55 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
10.1.56 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
10.1.57 Beta Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
10.1.58 Graphs of PDF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
10.1.59 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
10.1.60 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
10.1.61 Multinomial Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
10.1.62 Probability Mass Function (PMF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
10.1.63 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
10.1.64 Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
10.1.65 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
10.1.66 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
10.1.67 Chi-Square Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
10.1.68 Probability Density Function (PDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
10.1.69 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 336
10.1.70 Graphs of PDF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
10.1.71 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
10.1.72 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
10.1.73 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
10.1.74 t-Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
10.1.75 Probability Density Function (PDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
10.1.76 Graphs of PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
10.1.77 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
10.1.78 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
10.1.79 Log-Normal Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
10.1.80 Probability Density Function (PDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
10.1.81 Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) . . . . . . . . . 341
10.1.82 Graphs of PDF and CDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
10.1.83 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
10.1.84 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
10.1.85 Applications of Probability Distributions in Machine Learn-
ing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
10.1.86 Bayesian Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
10.1.87 Naive Bayes Classifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
10.1.88 Poisson Regression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
10.1.89 Generative Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
CONTENTS xix

10.1.90 Clustering Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

10.1.91 Importance of Probability Distributions in Machine Learn-
ing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
10.1.92 Bayes’ Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
10.1.93 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

11 Linear Regression and the LMS Algorithm 347

11.1 Background on Regression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
11.1.1 Cost Function and Gradient Descent . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
11.1.2 Derivation of the LMS Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
11.1.3 Example: Predicting Exam Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
11.1.4 Visualization of Gradient Descent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
11.1.5 Fitted Line for Exam Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
11.1.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
11.2 The Normal Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
11.2.1 Matrix Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
11.2.2 Deriving the Normal Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
11.2.3 Example: Exam Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

12 Linear Classifiers 355

12.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
12.2 Binary Linear Classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
12.2.1 Thresholds and Biases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
12.2.2 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
12.3 Geometric Picture of Linear Classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
12.3.1 Data Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
12.4 The Perceptron Learning Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
12.5 Limits of Linear Classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
12.6 Feature Representations for Non-linear Problems . . . . . . . . . 359
12.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

13 Training a Classifier 361

13.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
13.1.1 Learning Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
13.2 Choosing a Cost Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
13.2.1 0-1 Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
13.2.2 Linear Regression for Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
13.2.3 Logistic Nonlinearity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
13.2.4 Cross-Entropy Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
13.3 Gradient Descent for Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
13.3.1 Visualization of Gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
13.4 Hinge Loss and Support Vector Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
13.4.1 Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
13.5 Multiclass Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
13.5.1 Example: Multiclass Softmax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
13.6 Convex Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
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13.6.1 Visualization of Convexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

13.7 Gradient Checking with Finite Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
13.7.1 Example: Finite Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
13.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
13.9 Derivation of Log Loss Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
13.9.1 Introduction to Binary Classification and Cross-Entropy . 367
13.9.2 Likelihood Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
13.9.3 Log-Likelihood Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
13.9.4 Negative Log-Likelihood (Log Loss) Function . . . . . . . 368
13.9.5 Key Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
13.9.6 Connection to Gradient Descent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
13.9.7 Final Log Loss Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
13.9.8 Example Calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

14 Introduction to Neural Networks 371

14.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
14.2 Neural Network Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
14.2.1 Neurons and Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
14.2.2 Mathematical Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
14.2.3 Activation Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
14.3 Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
14.3.1 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
14.3.2 Universality of MLPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
14.4 Training Neural Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
14.4.1 Cost Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
14.4.2 Backpropagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
14.4.3 Example: MNIST Digit Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 373
14.5 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
14.5.1 Speech Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
14.5.2 Image Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
14.5.3 Natural Language Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
14.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
14.7 How Neural Networks Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

15 Deep Learning - Backpropagation 377

16 Distributed Representations in Neural Networks 381

16.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
16.2 Motivation: Language Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
16.2.1 Sequential Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
16.2.2 Challenges of Traditional Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
16.3 Distributed Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
16.3.1 Localist vs. Distributed Representations . . . . . . . . . . 382
16.4 Neural Probabilistic Language Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
16.4.1 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
16.4.2 Training Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
CONTENTS xxi

16.5 Visualizing Distributed Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

16.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

17 Optimization in Neural Networks 385

17.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
17.2 Gradient Descent: The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
17.2.1 Geometric Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
17.2.2 Learning Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
17.3 Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
17.3.1 Mini-Batches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
17.4 Advanced Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
17.4.1 Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
17.4.2 Learning Rate Decay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
17.5 Common Problems and Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
17.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

18 Convolutional Neural Networks 389

18.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
18.2 Convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
18.2.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
18.2.2 Interpretations of Convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
18.2.3 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
18.3 Convolutional Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
18.3.1 Key Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
18.3.2 Mathematical Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
18.4 Pooling Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
18.4.1 Max Pooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
18.5 Network Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

19 Deep Dive into Computer Vision and Image Recognition 393

19.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
19.2 Object Recognition Datasets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
19.2.1 MNIST and USPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
19.2.2 ImageNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
19.3 Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
19.3.1 Basics of CNNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
19.3.2 Pooling Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
19.4 Modern CNN Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
19.4.1 AlexNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
19.4.2 ResNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
19.5 Challenges and Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
19.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
xxii CONTENTS

20 Generalization in Machine Learning 399

20.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
20.1.1 Learning Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
20.2 Measuring Generalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
20.3 Reasoning About Generalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
20.3.1 Training and Test Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
20.3.2 Bias-Variance Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
20.4 Techniques to Improve Generalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
20.4.1 Reducing Model Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
20.4.2 Early Stopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
20.4.3 Weight Decay (L2 Regularization) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
20.4.4 Ensembles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
20.4.5 Data Augmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
20.4.6 Stochastic Regularization (Dropout) . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
20.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

21 Recurrent Neural Networks: Concepts, Architectures, and Ap-

plications 403
21.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
21.1.1 Key Characteristics of RNNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
21.2 RNN Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
21.2.1 Mathematical Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
21.2.2 Unrolling an RNN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
21.3 Training RNNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
21.3.1 Loss Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
21.3.2 Backpropagation Through Time (BPTT) . . . . . . . . . 405
21.3.3 Exploding and Vanishing Gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
21.4 Advanced Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
21.4.1 Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
21.4.2 Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
21.5 Applications of RNNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
21.5.1 Language Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
21.5.2 Machine Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
21.5.3 Text Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
21.6 Practical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
21.6.1 Implementation in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
21.6.2 Hyperparameter Tuning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
21.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

22 Basics of Large Language Models 409

22.1 The Attention Mechanism in Transformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
22.2 How Large Language Models Store Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
22.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
22.2.2 The Building Blocks of Large Language Models . . . . . . 416
22.2.3 How Facts Are Stored in MLPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
22.2.4 Superposition: Storing More with Less . . . . . . . . . . . 417
CONTENTS xxiii

22.2.5 Practical Applications of Fact Storage in MLPs . . . . . . 417

22.2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
22.3 Training Large Language Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
22.3.1 Training Large Language Models – Backpropagation, Fine-
Tuning, and Reinforcement Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
22.3.2 From Random Weights to Pattern Recognition: The Role
of Backpropagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
22.3.3 Fine-Tuning: Tailoring LLMs to Specialized Domains . . 419
22.3.4 Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF):
Aligning with Human Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
22.3.5 Training Objectives: Learning Facts, Patterns, and Struc-
ture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
22.3.6 From Training to Real-World Application: The Predictive
Power of LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
22.3.7 Summary and Looking Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
22.4 Understanding and Enhancing Model Interpretability in Large
Language Models (LLMs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
22.4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
22.4.2 Why Interpretability Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
22.4.3 Techniques for Interpreting LLMs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
22.4.4 Applications in Bias and Fairness Auditing . . . . . . . . 423
22.4.5 Limitations and Challenges in Interpretability . . . . . . . 424
22.4.6 Future Directions in Model Interpretability . . . . . . . . 424
22.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
xxiv CONTENTS
Introduction

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Large Language Models
(LLMs) are at the forefront of technological innovation, driving breakthroughs
across industries like healthcare, finance, transportation, and entertainment.
These technologies power everything from self-driving cars to personalized con-
tent recommendations and intelligent chatbots.
As demand for AI/ML/LLM expertise grows, so does the competition for
positions at leading tech companies such as OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft,
and Amazon. These organizations seek candidates who not only excel in techni-
cal skills but also demonstrate a deep understanding of AI principles, scalability
challenges, and ethical considerations.
This playbook is your ultimate guide to navigating AI/ML/LLM interviews.
It equips you with the tools and knowledge required to excel in interviews and
stand out as a top candidate.

What to Expect in AI, ML, and LLM Interviews

AI/ML/LLM interviews are designed to test a wide range of skills, including the-
oretical knowledge, practical coding, system design capabilities, and familiarity
with state-of-the-art advancements. Below are the key areas that interviewers
typically focus on:

Core Machine Learning Concepts

Understanding the fundamentals of machine learning is critical. Companies
expect candidates to:

• Differentiate between supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learn-

ing approaches.

• Explain algorithms like linear regression, logistic regression, k-means clus-

tering, and neural networks.

• Discuss regularization techniques like L1 and L2 penalties to prevent over-

fitting.

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• Evaluate models using metrics such as precision, recall, F1 score, and

AUC-ROC.

For instance, you might be asked to explain the trade-offs between bias and
variance or analyze how hyperparameter tuning affects a model’s performance.

Deep Learning and Neural Networks

Deep learning is at the core of modern AI applications. Candidates are expected
to:

• Discuss architectures like Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Recur-

rent Neural Networks (RNNs), and Transformers.

• Understand optimization techniques, such as Adam and SGD, and their

impact on training stability.

• Familiarize themselves with popular frameworks like PyTorch and Tensor-

Flow.

• Solve challenges related to vanishing gradients or exploding gradients in

deep networks.

You might encounter questions on backpropagation, attention mechanisms, or

transfer learning strategies.

Large Language Models (LLMs)

With LLMs like GPT-4 and BERT revolutionizing natural language processing
(NLP), understanding these models is paramount:

• Explain the Transformer architecture, including self-attention and posi-

tional encoding.

• Discuss pretraining and fine-tuning paradigms.

• Solve tasks such as text classification, summarization, or named entity

recognition.

• Address ethical considerations, such as mitigating bias and ensuring fair-

ness.

For example, a common task might involve analyzing how fine-tuning on domain-
specific data enhances performance.
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System Design for Machine Learning

Building scalable AI systems is a core skill, particularly for engineering roles.
Topics include:

• Designing pipelines for data preprocessing, feature engineering, and model

training.

• Architecting systems for distributed training across GPUs or TPUs.

• Exploring strategies for real-time inference and model serving.

• Incorporating monitoring and logging to track model drift and system

health.

You may be asked to design a recommendation engine or a fraud detection

system that handles millions of daily transactions.

Coding and Algorithmic Problem Solving

Strong coding skills are essential for implementing ML algorithms and debugging
models. Focus areas include:

• Writing efficient Python code for data manipulation using libraries like
NumPy and Pandas.

• Implementing ML algorithms like decision trees or support vector ma-

chines from scratch.

• Optimizing training pipelines for large datasets.

• Debugging and profiling code to identify bottlenecks.

For example, you might need to write a program that performs k-means clus-
tering on a dataset in real time.

How to Ace AI/ML/LLM Interviews

Success in AI/ML/LLM interviews requires a combination of preparation, prac-
tice, and strategic thinking. Here’s how you can maximize your chances:

Master the Fundamentals

Dedicate time to understanding core concepts. This playbook provides concise
explanations and examples to strengthen your foundation. Dive deeper into
topics like gradient descent, neural networks, and Transformer-based models.
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Build Hands-On Experience

Create personal projects to gain practical exposure. Examples include:
• Building a sentiment analysis model using BERT.

• Designing a GAN to generate realistic images.

• Deploying a Flask-based API for serving an ML model.
Share your projects on GitHub to showcase your skills.

Stay Updated with Research and Trends

Stay informed about cutting-edge advancements by reading foundational papers
such as:
• Attention Is All You Need (Vaswani et al.).

• BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Un-

derstanding (Devlin et al.).
• GPT-3: Language Models are Few-Shot Learners (Brown et al.).
Follow conferences like NeurIPS, ICML, and CVPR for insights into the latest
developments.

Prepare for System Design Interviews

Develop your ability to design robust and scalable AI/ML systems. Practice
scenarios such as:
• Designing a pipeline for real-time recommendation systems.
• Architecting a distributed system for training LLMs across multiple nodes.
• Creating monitoring frameworks for model performance and drift detec-
tion.

Simulate Interview Scenarios

Conduct mock interviews with peers or mentors to simulate real-world scenarios.
Use platforms like Pramp or Interviewing.io for structured practice. Request
detailed feedback to identify and address weak areas.