Back to AI Agents / RAG
About this interview
A technical interview on Tool Use, pitched at the easy level. A voice AI interviewer leads the conversation, adapts its questions to your answers, keeps you on topic, and afterward gives you honest, specific feedback on where you were strong and where to improve. Expect roughly 30 minutes.
What you'll be assessed on
Explain function/tool schemas and how LLMs use them to select and invoke tools
Describe the message handling cycle: user input → LLM response → tool call → tool output → next LLM call
Identify error handling, validation, and fallback strategies for tool failures
Distinguish when tool use is appropriate versus when a single LLM call suffices
Topics covered
Tool Use BasicsTool SchemasMessage Handling CycleTool SelectionTool Choice ConfigurationFunction Call ResponseMessage RolesUse CasesWhen Not to Use ToolsFramework AbstractionsParameter ValidationError HandlingParallel Tool CallsTool Security
A few sample questions
Just examples to set expectations - the real interview has many more and adapts to your responses.
“In plain terms, what does tool use or function calling add to an LLM that it cannot do on its own?
“You are designing an agent that can query a live database. What security measures should you put in place around that tool?
“How does the context window constraint affect your tool design strategy when tool outputs can be large — for example, a database query returning thousands of rows?