PracHub
QuestionsPremiumLearningGuidesCheatsheetNEWCoaches
|Home/Machine Learning/OpenAI

Improve classifier with noisy multi-annotator labels

Last updated: Apr 7, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates a candidate's ability to analyze noisy multi-annotator labels, design label-aggregation and dataset-splitting strategies, and choose modeling and evaluation approaches for binary text classification.

  • hard
  • OpenAI
  • Machine Learning
  • Machine Learning Engineer

Improve classifier with noisy multi-annotator labels

Company: OpenAI

Role: Machine Learning Engineer

Category: Machine Learning

Difficulty: hard

Interview Round: Technical Screen

## Problem You are given a **text dataset** for a **binary classification** task (label in \{0,1\}). Each example has been labeled by **multiple human annotators**, and annotators often disagree (i.e., the same item can have conflicting labels). You need to: 1. Perform a **dataset/label analysis** to understand the disagreement and likely label noise. 2. Propose a **training and evaluation approach** that improves **offline metrics** (e.g., F1 / AUC / accuracy), given the noisy multi-annotator labels. ### Assumptions you may make (state them clearly) - You have access to: raw text, per-annotator labels, annotator IDs, and timestamps. - You can retrain models and change the labeling aggregation strategy, but you may have limited or no ability to collect new labels. ### Deliverables - What analyses would you run and what would you look for? - How would you construct train/validation/test splits to avoid misleading offline metrics? - How would you convert multi-annotator labels into training targets? - What model/loss/thresholding/calibration choices would you try, and why? - What failure modes and edge cases could cause offline metric gains to be illusory?

Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's ability to analyze noisy multi-annotator labels, design label-aggregation and dataset-splitting strategies, and choose modeling and evaluation approaches for binary text classification.

Related Interview Questions

  • Implement Backprop for a Tiny Network - OpenAI (hard)
  • Filter Bad Human Annotations - OpenAI (medium)
  • Compute Matrix Prefix Products And Gradients - OpenAI (hard)
  • Improve Training With Noisy Annotators - OpenAI (hard)
  • Debug a Broken Transformer - OpenAI (medium)
OpenAI logo
OpenAI
Feb 11, 2026, 12:00 AM
Machine Learning Engineer
Technical Screen
Machine Learning
762
0

Problem

You are given a text dataset for a binary classification task (label in {0,1}). Each example has been labeled by multiple human annotators, and annotators often disagree (i.e., the same item can have conflicting labels).

You need to:

  1. Perform a dataset/label analysis to understand the disagreement and likely label noise.
  2. Propose a training and evaluation approach that improves offline metrics (e.g., F1 / AUC / accuracy), given the noisy multi-annotator labels.

Assumptions you may make (state them clearly)

  • You have access to: raw text, per-annotator labels, annotator IDs, and timestamps.
  • You can retrain models and change the labeling aggregation strategy, but you may have limited or no ability to collect new labels.

Deliverables

  • What analyses would you run and what would you look for?
  • How would you construct train/validation/test splits to avoid misleading offline metrics?
  • How would you convert multi-annotator labels into training targets?
  • What model/loss/thresholding/calibration choices would you try, and why?
  • What failure modes and edge cases could cause offline metric gains to be illusory?

Comments (0)

Sign in to leave a comment

Loading comments...

Browse More Questions

More Machine Learning•More OpenAI•More Machine Learning Engineer•OpenAI Machine Learning Engineer•OpenAI Machine Learning•Machine Learning Engineer Machine Learning
PracHub

Master your tech interviews with 7,500+ real questions from top companies.

Product

  • Questions
  • Learning Tracks
  • Interview Guides
  • Resources
  • Premium
  • For Universities
  • Student Access

Browse

  • By Company
  • By Role
  • By Category
  • Topic Hubs
  • SQL Questions
  • Compare Platforms
  • Discord Community

Support

  • support@prachub.com
  • (916) 541-4762

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • About Us

© 2026 PracHub. All rights reserved.