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Design Cold Start Recommendations

HardSystem Design00:00
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The question is on your right: Design Cold Start Recommendations. Take a moment with it first.

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Problem

Scenario

You are building a recommendation system for a digital platform with personalized feeds and item suggestions. The system works well for active users and established items, but it struggles when a new user arrives or a new item is added with little or no interaction history.

Question

How would you handle cold start for a new user or item in a recommendation system?

What this tests

  • Cold-start handling for both users and items
  • Retrieval, ranking, and re-ranking design choices
  • Feature store and side-information usage
  • Monitoring for drift and training-serving skew