What are word embeddings (Word2Vec, GloVe), and how do they capture meaning?
Embeddings are the substrate of modern NLP and retrieval. This checks whether you understand the distributional idea behind them, not just 'words become vectors.' The signal is how training on context produces geometry that encodes meaning.
Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Applied AI Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
Embeddings are the substrate of modern NLP and retrieval. This checks whether you understand the distributional idea behind them, not just 'words become vectors.' The signal is how training on context produces geometry that encodes meaning.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.