AI Product Strategy and Model Choice
Choosing an LLM: Model Selection Interview Questions
How to pick a model for a product: quality against price, why benchmark leaderboards are a weak guide, what a bigger context window really buys, and how to compare models on your own use case. Asked of AI PMs and AI engineers.
- 23 questions with model answers
- 1 foundational · 10 intermediate · 12 advanced
Foundational Choosing an LLM: Model Selection Questions
Intermediate Choosing an LLM: Model Selection Questions
- Why is benchmark leaderboard position a weak input to model selection?Concept
- Describe how you would build a model bake-off for your specific use case.Case
- How do you weigh a model that is 20 percent better and three times more expensive?Calculation
- Explain when a smaller, faster model beats the frontier model in a product.Concept
- What does context window size actually buy you in product terms?Concept
- What non-quality factors should influence model choice: name four.Concept
- How do data residency and privacy terms constrain model selection for enterprise customers?Concept
- Describe how you would evaluate a model on your own domain-specific terminology.Case
- What role should rate limits and provider reliability play in the decision?Concept
- Explain the difference between choosing a model and choosing a provider.Concept
Advanced Choosing an LLM: Model Selection Questions
- How do you evaluate a model's reliability on structured output for your schema?Case
- Describe a test set you would build to choose between two candidate models.Artifact critique
- Explain the case for supporting multiple models behind an abstraction layer.Concept
- What is the product cost of switching models after launch?Concept
- Your chosen model is deprecated in 90 days. Walk through your response plan.Case
- How would you decide between an open-weights model and a proprietary API for a healthcare product?Case
- Explain why a model that is better on average can be worse for your product.Concept
- How do you compare models when your task requires tool use rather than text generation?Concept
- Build the scorecard you would use to present a model recommendation to leadership.Artifact critique
- What is your policy for adopting a newly released model into a production feature?Concept
- How do you handle a model that is best for one customer segment and worst for another?Case
- Defend a model choice to an engineer who prefers a different one.Interview