# DeepMTL2R: A Library for Deep Multi-task Learning to Rank

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14519 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.14519/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 13 of its 33 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Multi-Task Learning Using Uncertainty to Weigh Losses for Scene Geometry and Semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07115/) (2017)
- [Gradient Surgery for Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06782/) (2020)
- [Multi-Task Learning as Multi-Objective Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04650/) (2018)
- [End-to-End Multi-Task Learning with Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.10704/) (2018)
- [Conflict-Averse Gradient Descent for Multi-task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14048/) (2021)
- [Deep & Cross Network for Ad Click Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.05123/) (2017)
- [Multi-Task Learning as a Bargaining Game](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.01017/) (2022)
- [Just Pick a Sign: Optimizing Deep Multitask Models with Gradient Sign Dropout](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.06808/) (2020)
- [A Deep Relevance Matching Model for Ad-hoc Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.08611/) (2017)
- [Introducing LETOR 4.0 Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1306.2597/) (2013)
- [Deeper Text Understanding for IR with Contextual Neural Language Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.09217/) (2019)
- [Multi-objective Ranking via Constrained Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05753/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper presents DeepMTL2R, an open-source deep learning framework for Multi-task Learning to Rank (MTL2R), where multiple relevance criteria must be optimized simultaneously. DeepMTL2R integrates heterogeneous relevance signals into a unified, context-aware model by leveraging the self-attention mechanism of transformer architectures, enabling effective learning across diverse and potentially conflicting objectives. The framework includes 21 state-of-the-art multi-task learning algorithms and supports multi-objective optimization to identify Pareto-optimal ranking models. By capturing complex dependencies and long-range interactions among items and labels, DeepMTL2R provides a scalable and expressive solution for modern ranking systems and facilitates controlled comparisons across MTL strategies. We demonstrate its effectiveness on a publicly available dataset, report competitive performance, and visualize the resulting trade-offs among objectives. DeepMTL2R is available at hrefhttps://github.com/amazon-science/DeepMTL2Rhttps://github.com/amazon-science/DeepMTL2R.
