Computer Vision Interview Questions, issue 3, Jan 4, 2026
The Low Initial Loss Trap
Machine Learning Engineer interview at OpenAI, and the interviewer asks:
“You kick off training for a Softmax classifier on CIFAR-10 (10 classes). In the very first iteration, your loss reads 0.05. Is this good news?”
Don’t say: “That’s amazing! The model is converging incredibly fast. The data pipeline must be super clean.”
Why a Softmax loss of 0.05 at step zero doesn’t mean your model is brilliant — it means your training pipeline is broken.
The full answer, with the mechanism and the arithmetic, is for paid subscribers on Substack.