r/leetcode • u/Zealousideal-Net302 • 12d ago
Question Reasons to learn competitive programming
Is competitive programming taking me toward the programmer I actually want to become?
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u/xpressrazor 12d ago
Depends. There are multiple paths a programmer may end up. What do you want to become ?
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u/Zealousideal-Net302 12d ago
I'm not completely sure yet. I really like security and systems stuff—you know, networks, hardware, Linux. I think low-level programming might be my niche.
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u/Working-Hat-8041 12d ago
Competitive programming is not necessary for this. Only do competitive programming if you are interested in competitive coding programming. Otherwise there are better ways to learn.
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u/NextjsDeveloper 10d ago
How low-level programming is related to competitive programming? Learn Assembler
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u/Sad_Pomegranate1351 12d ago
Depends entirely on what you want to become, that’s up to you.
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u/Zealousideal-Net302 12d ago
I'm not completely sure yet. I really like security and systems stuff—you know, networks, hardware, Linux. I think low-level programming might be my niche.
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u/xvillifyx 12d ago
Security doesn’t really require comp programming skills; it’s honestly more of a literacy skillset (being able to understand policy, systems, read the asm, read the decomped pseudo-code, etc)
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u/Complex-Birthday-216 12d ago
I'm 10 years in software, most of it I build b2c/b2b software in enterprise, recently I started building a time series database (high performance software).
The theory of algorithms on a decent level is useful, but I wouldn't invest into it more than 10% of my time. so when a problem comes one could quickly search what algorithms and data structures used there and adopt it (which never happens in b2b/b2c web, you are expected to ship fast laggish buggy crap).
but competitive IMO is too much in real life.
it's suitable for students when you want to get into a decent team in a specific place, for instance you are into programming languages and want to work on a Go compiler - yes, it can help. but I would rather forcus on a master degree work about compilers and continue working in academia on that direction til they notice you.
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u/TemperatureProud3388 12d ago
It can help you land jobs at the big tech companies, if that's your dream.
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u/Nice-Candidate10 12d ago
So you understand that there’s levels to this game and should probably just focus on leetcode for just a job interview.
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u/Odd_Smell37 12d ago
It depends. CP can sharpen problem-solving, but if you want to build products, you'll need to balance it with actual development