Most of people start competitive programming in college mostly to end up landing into a good job. Probably because hiring process of almost all companies are mostly same i.e. they ask problems similar to the one in CP.
Like everyone, I also started CP in college during end of my second year ( my graduation was of 4 years ). I got to know about codechef from my college notice board ( some of my seniors posted an article about CP on the notice board).
I was a bit curious about codechef, so, in the evening when I came back to hostel room, I started searching about codechef and similar platforms. I ended up reading several articles on quora and eventually landed up on HackerRank.
I was not a very hard core problem solver and I used to solve very fewer questions initially. But slowly as I kept on learning new algorithms and c++ in more depth.
So, by the time placements season came andcompanies started visiting our colleges, I had solved around 200+ problems on HackerRank and 90+ problems on codechef. I was able to clear almost all the service based companies like Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant. But could not clear Directi exam ( Directi is the company behind codechef ). I ended up joining a job as an Application Support Engineer( I don't know why they named it engineer, although there is nothing to engineer in a support role ), in a US based comapany which makes event management softwares.
Also, I was able to clear Amazon's coding round but didn't appear for the interview, probably because of lack of confidence and motivation. Once you start doing a job you won't be that much motivated to prepare for an interview. It might happen due to lack of time and hectic life. But still some people manage to overcome these things, but I am not one of them.
And while doing a job its extremely difficult to maintain motivation to do CP even on weekends. It just doesn't feels like those college days when solving a problem used to give fun and happeness.
I wrote this article because I thought there must many people like me, who would be thinking that only they are not able to do CP while in a job, then probably I should tell them that it's not true, there are many.
Thanks for reading till end.
Top comments (2)
So how exactly did you manage to do and track your progress ?
I work as Technology Analyst @ an Investment Bank and find really difficult to cope. I have started cp back in my 2nd year but till date I don't see much improvement over myself. Except that I know necessary DS and Algos. But I still face difficult in solving medium level questions on codechef and that makes me identify myself as mediocre problem solver.
After talking to my friends who are in good companies at better profile, I realized that once we start doing job then competitive programming is not that important in job interviews perspective, but its important to keep brain functioning. I am really good at cp , but I can solve medium and easy problem after a little struggle. Just like you even I realize that I am a mediocre in problem solving, so, I started doing development related work in free time like weekends or holidays. Development works are really important apart from CP as explained by a red coder on codeforces, Bohdan Pryshchenko ( he writes a lot on quora ).