Adam: persistent moments and bias correction
Posted 26 October 2026. Original preparation material, not a claim about any company’s interview requirements.
What you should be able to do
Explain the objective, trace a small example on paper, implement the core without library algorithm shortcuts, and defend boundary behavior. Prerequisites: Python, arrays, basic linear algebra and derivatives.
Intuition
Adam combines a running gradient mean with a running squared-gradient mean. The latter rescales coordinates; it is not the variance because it does not subtract the squared mean. State belongs to each parameter tensor and must survive between steps.
Formula and derivation
Expand the recurrence from zero initialization. For a stationary gradient mean μ, E[m_t]=(1−β1^t)μ. Dividing by that factor removes the initialization bias under this assumption. The same argument applies to the second raw moment. Increment t before computing the correction;
Paper-and-pencil example
With
Implementation contract and common errors
Time and state are O(P) for P parameters, with two moment buffers. The reference has no weight decay, AMSGrad, clipping, mixed precision or parameter groups. AdamW decouples weight decay from the gradient transformation; adding λθ into the gradient is not equivalent under adaptive scaling. A zero current gradient can still move parameters because momentum persists.
Complete runnable reference
The shared file contains all five algorithms, including multi-head attention. Requires Python 3.11+ and NumPy; validated with Python 3.12.14 and NumPy 2.3.5. Inputs are deterministic; no random seed is needed. No paid API or model download.
Download Python implementation and tests
python -m pip install numpy==2.3.5
python core.py
# PASS: 10 algorithm invariants (synthetic fixtures)Show full source
import numpy as np
def softmax(x):
x = np.asarray(x, dtype=float)
if x.size == 0 or not np.isfinite(x).all():
raise ValueError('nonempty finite logits required')
z = np.exp(x - x.max(axis=-1, keepdims=True))
return z / z.sum(axis=-1, keepdims=True)
def attention(q, k, v, causal=False):
if q.shape[-1] != k.shape[-1] or k.shape[-2] != v.shape[-2]:
raise ValueError('incompatible shapes')
scores = q @ k.swapaxes(-1, -2) / np.sqrt(q.shape[-1])
if causal:
if q.shape[-2] != k.shape[-2]:
raise ValueError('this teaching mask requires equal sequence lengths')
mask = np.tril(np.ones(scores.shape[-2:], dtype=bool))
scores = np.where(mask, scores, -np.inf)
z = np.exp(scores - scores.max(axis=-1, keepdims=True))
weights = z / z.sum(axis=-1, keepdims=True)
return weights @ v
def multi_head(x, wq, wk, wv, wo, heads, causal=True):
b, t, d = x.shape
if heads < 1 or d % heads: raise ValueError('heads must divide model dimension')
def split(w):
return (x @ w).reshape(b, t, heads, d // heads).transpose(0, 2, 1, 3)
y = attention(split(wq), split(wk), split(wv), causal)
return y.transpose(0, 2, 1, 3).reshape(b, t, d) @ wo
def kmeans(x, centers, max_iter=100, tol=1e-8):
x, c = np.asarray(x, float), np.array(centers, float, copy=True)
if x.ndim!=2 or c.ndim!=2 or not len(x) or not len(c) or x.shape[1]!=c.shape[1] or max_iter<1 or not np.isfinite(x).all() or not np.isfinite(c).all():
raise ValueError('invalid data or centers')
for _ in range(max_iter):
labels = ((x[:,None,:]-c[None,:,:])**2).sum(-1).argmin(-1)
new = np.array([x[labels==j].mean(0) if np.any(labels==j) else c[j] for j in range(len(c))])
shift = np.max(np.linalg.norm(new-c,axis=1))
c = new
if shift <= tol: break
labels = ((x[:,None,:]-c[None,:,:])**2).sum(-1).argmin(-1)
return c, labels, ((x-c[labels])**2).sum()
class Adam:
def __init__(self, shape, lr=.001, b1=.9, b2=.999, eps=1e-8):
self.m=np.zeros(shape); self.v=np.zeros(shape); self.t=0
self.lr,self.b1,self.b2,self.eps=lr,b1,b2,eps
def step(self, p, g):
if p.shape!=self.m.shape or g.shape!=p.shape or not np.isfinite(g).all(): raise ValueError('invalid gradient')
self.t+=1
self.m=self.b1*self.m+(1-self.b1)*g
self.v=self.b2*self.v+(1-self.b2)*g*g
mh=self.m/(1-self.b1**self.t); vh=self.v/(1-self.b2**self.t)
return p-self.lr*mh/(np.sqrt(vh)+self.eps)
def beam_search(next_log_probs, width=2, max_steps=4, eos='EOS'):
if width<1 or max_steps<1: raise ValueError('positive limits required')
beams=[((),0.,False)]
for _ in range(max_steps):
candidates=[]
for seq,score,done in beams:
if done: candidates.append((seq,score,True)); continue
for token,lp in next_log_probs(seq).items():
if not np.isfinite(lp) or lp>0: raise ValueError('finite log probabilities required')
candidates.append((seq+(token,),score+lp,token==eos))
if not candidates: raise ValueError('no candidates')
beams=sorted(candidates,key=lambda x:(-x[1],x[0]))[:width]
if all(x[2] for x in beams): break
return beams
if __name__=='__main__':
assert np.allclose(softmax([1000,1000]),[.5,.5])
assert np.allclose(softmax([1,2]),softmax([101,102]))
x=np.arange(24,dtype=float).reshape(1,3,8)/24; eye=np.eye(8)
y=multi_head(x,eye,eye,eye,eye,2); changed=x.copy(); changed[:,2]+=10
assert np.allclose(y[:,:2],multi_head(changed,eye,eye,eye,eye,2)[:,:2])
assert np.allclose(multi_head(x,eye,eye,eye,eye,1),attention(x,x,x,True))
c,l,s=kmeans([[0],[2],[8],[10]],[[0],[10]])
assert np.allclose(c,[[1],[9]]) and s==4
c,l,s=kmeans([[0],[0]],[[0],[8]]); assert np.isfinite(c).all()
opt=Adam((1,)); assert np.allclose(opt.step(np.array([1.]),np.array([2.])),[.999])
assert opt.t==1
def probs(seq):
p={'A':.6,'B':.4} if not seq else ({'EOS':.5,'X':.5} if seq[-1]=='A' else {'EOS':.9,'X':.1})
return {k:np.log(v) for k,v in p.items()}
assert beam_search(probs,max_steps=2)[0][0]==('B','EOS')
assert beam_search(probs,width=1,max_steps=2)[0][0]==('A','EOS')
print('PASS: 10 algorithm invariants (synthetic fixtures)')
Interview follow-up
Can you reset m and v at every batch?
Hint: Consider what remains of the recurrence.
Answer and reasoning
That discards the accumulated statistics and changes the optimizer. Checkpoint weights together with moments and step counters when resuming training.
Practice without looking
- Spend 3 minutes writing shapes, assumptions and an example.
- Spend 12 minutes writing the core implementation on paper.
- Spend 5 minutes tracing an ordinary input and one failure case.
- Type your handwritten version and run the reference invariants. Explain every mismatch before consulting the solution.
Transfer exercise: change one assumption in the implementation contract above. Write a new test that fails before your modification and passes afterward. A convincing explanation of a limitation is better than silently inventing unsupported behavior.
Sources and next lesson
Primary paper or official documentation · Paper PDF
Softmax: stable probabilities and gradients
Attention and Multi-Head Attention: write the shapes first
K-Means: assignment, centroid updates and empty clusters