DAY 57 / 210
Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning Foundations
This opening day of week 9 establishes why full fine-tuning is rarely viable for startup-scale models and introduces PEFT methods that preserve performance at low cost. The concepts directly support Maku's work on StartupTribunal by enabling targeted adaptation of existing models rather than training from scratch. It creates the conceptual baseline for all subsequent implementation days in the phase.
⏱ 45 min target📝 2 quiz Qs
Resources
- 15 min
- 20 min
Deliverable
One-page markdown summary of PEFT trade-offs committed as peft-day1-summary.md in branch feature/peft-intro
Quiz · 2 questions
1. Why do practitioners prefer LoRA over full fine-tuning for most production adaptations?
2. Name one common misconception about fine-tuning that PEFT directly addresses and briefly explain why it matters for startups.