Benchmark Almanac

OpenAI Research Engineer Interview: Multiple Choice

o4-mini 83% leads since Apr 2025 Only in system cards

Models answer 97 multiple-choice questions drawn from OpenAI machine learning interview topics. Scored as cons@32.

In-house OpenAI evaluation from the internal interview question bank.

Made by OpenAI Released Aug 2024 Labs' internal R&D tests Tasks kept private Last in a system card Jul 2025 Last model added Jul 2025
Level
Expert Specialists with years of training, often over hours of work
Scored
Checked automatically A program checks the result against an answer key, unit tests or the expected final state.
Answers
Multiple choice
9
Models scored in lab cards
10
System cards report it, from 1 lab

o4-mini leads with 83% among models released by Apr 2025

Best score per model as labs report them in their own cards. Labs pick their own settings, so these compare less cleanly than independent runs.

The newest model with a score here came out in Apr 2025, and nobody has reported a newer one. Among the 20 highest-ranked models on the capability index, these have no score yet:

  1. 83.0 o4-mini
  2. 80.0 o3-mini
  3. 80.0 GPT-4.5
  4. 80.0 o3
  5. 78.0 o1
  6. 78.0 OpenAI deep research
  7. 77.3 o1-mini
  8. 76.8 o1-preview
  9. 61.0 GPT-4o
  1. 1 o4-mini 83%
  2. 2 o3-mini 80%
  3. 3 GPT-4.5 80%
  4. 4 o3 80%
  5. 5 o1 78%
  6. 6 OpenAI deep research 78%
  7. 7 o1-mini 77.3%
  8. 8 o1-preview 76.8%
  9. 9 GPT-4o May 2024 61%
#ModelScoreSettingDateSource
1 o4-mini 83% Apr 2025 Model card
2 o3-mini 80% Jan 2025 Model card
3 GPT-4.5 80% Feb 2025 Model card
4 o3 80% Apr 2025 Model card
5 o1 78% Dec 2024 Model card
6 OpenAI deep research 78% Feb 2025 Model card
7 o1-mini 77.3% Sep 2024 Model card
8 o1-preview 76.8% Sep 2024 Model card
9 GPT-4o May 2024 61% Aug 2024 Model card

5 models have held number one since its release in Aug 2024

Lab claims count from the day the card came out, independent runs from the model’s release.

OpenAI
Lab claims Not tested since Apr 2025
o4-mini 83%

Scores over time

All the scores we have, one dot each, so a model tested at several settings appears more than once.

Reported by the lab in its model card Best so far
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 Near the ceiling (85%) o4-mini o3-mini o1-mini GPT-4o 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 Near the ceiling (85%) o4-mini o1-mini

Labs report it only in system cards

We read the headline results of 479 launch posts from 51 labs, and none of them list this benchmark. Some system cards do, below.

10 system cards report it, from 1 lab

Besides launch posts, we read the system cards, model cards and technical reports labs publish with a release. They report far more, including safety and frontier-risk tests.

DateDocumentScoreAs the document writes itSection
17 Jul 2025 ChatGPT agent system card OpenAI RE Interview Multiple-Choice, cons@32, chart shows only ChatGPT Agent no-browsing helpful-only at 75%, no released-model value (Figure 14, 5.1.3.1) AI R&D risk
16 Apr 2025 o4-mini system card 83 OpenAI RE Interview Multiple-Choice, cons@32, o4-mini no browsing launch candidate, printed chart label (Figure 16) AI R&D risk
16 Apr 2025 o3 system card 80 OpenAI RE Interview Multiple-Choice, cons@32, o3 no browsing launch candidate, printed chart label (Figure 16) AI R&D risk
27 Feb 2025 GPT-4.5 system card 80 OpenAI Research Engineer Interview, multiple choice, pre- and post-mitigation (4.6.1) Autonomy
25 Feb 2025 OpenAI deep research system card 78 OpenAI RE Interview Multiple-Choice, cons@32, post-mitigation with browsing, text and printed chart label (without browsing 76%) (3.4.7) Autonomy
31 Jan 2025 o3-mini system card 80 OpenAI RE Interview Multiple-Choice, cons@32, o3-mini (Post), printed chart label (5.7.1) Autonomy
5 Dec 2024 o1 system card 78 OpenAI RE Interview Multiple-Choice, cons@32, o1 (post-mitigation), printed chart label (5.8.1) Autonomy
12 Sep 2024 o1-preview system card 76.8 OpenAI Research Engineer Interviews (Multiple Choice), pass rate cons@32, o1-preview (post-mitigation), printed chart label (4.5.1) Autonomy
12 Sep 2024 o1-mini system card 77.3 OpenAI Research Engineer Interviews (Multiple Choice), pass rate cons@32, o1-mini (post-mitigation), printed chart label (4.5.1) Autonomy
8 Aug 2024 GPT-4o system card 61 OpenAI interview, multiple choice questions, cons@32 (3.8) AI R&D risk

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