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How does vLLM's PagedAttention work, and what problem does it actually solve?

The OS virtual-memory trick that made vLLM the default serving stack. The answer interviewers want quantifies the fragmentation it killed, and knows what it cost in exchange.

Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Forward Deployed Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.

The OS virtual-memory trick that made vLLM the default serving stack. The answer interviewers want quantifies the fragmentation it killed, and knows what it cost in exchange.

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Next in this trackExplain continuous batching vs static batching for LLM serving.Next in this trackPrefill vs decode, why are the two phases bottlenecked differently, and why disaggregate them?Next in this trackWhat is speculative decoding, and when does it actually help?

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