AI EngineeringInterview preparation
Intermediate·Concept·2 min read

LLMs

Practice this question
  • Practice saying the answer clearly, then explain the insurance example and the trade-off.
  • A strong answer identifies the authoritative data, safe failure, and measurement—not only the framework name.

Beginner — What is an LLM good for?

  • An LLM processes language using learned patterns and supplied context.
  • I use it to summarize, extract, classify, explain, and propose tool actions.
  • Current claim status and business permissions come from services, not the model's memory.

Intermediate — Does temperature zero guarantee the same correct result?

  • No.
  • It generally reduces sampling variation where supported, but it does not verify evidence or eliminate all runtime variation.
  • I use schemas, authoritative data, bounded outputs, and evaluations to establish application reliability.

Senior — How do you choose a model?

  • I compare candidate models on representative tasks, including failure and adversarial cases.
  • I measure correctness, supported tool/schema capabilities, latency, cost per successful task, and deployment/data restrictions, then version the selected configuration and keep a rollback path.

Scenario — The model invents a claim status. What do you change?

  • I remove any path that asks it to know account facts.
  • An authorized tool returns canonical status; a template or model explains that result.
  • I test missing claims, denied access, backend failure, and unsupported extra statements.
Adapted from 13_AI.MD · “29.1 LLMs”. Code examples are study fragments. Difficulty and core labels are editorial estimates; version-specific behavior should be checked against your project.