Cosine similarity finds topically close, not correct. The failure taxonomy behind most RAG accuracy complaints, and the hybrid-search + reranker fix stack interviewers expect you to know cold.
more free answers with an account · no card
← LLM & GenAI Fundamentals / 13
mediumCohereGleanOpenAI
Why does vector search retrieve 'related but wrong' results, and how do you fix it?
Cosine similarity finds topically close, not correct. The failure taxonomy behind most RAG accuracy complaints, and the hybrid-search + reranker fix stack interviewers expect you to know cold.
Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Forward Deployed Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
UP NEXT ON YOUR JOURNEY
Next in this trackGive me three concrete hallucination mitigations, and the cost of each.Next in this trackWhen does fine-tuning beat few-shot prompting? How much data do you need, and how do you prevent regressions?Next in this trackWhat is 'lost in the middle,' and how does it change how you assemble context for a RAG system?
DISCUSSION · 0
No comments yet — be the first to share your approach.