[goodbyesf]

> I'm just trying to be a better engineer

Your time would be better spent on accumulating domain knowledge in whatever industry you are working in - finance, healthcare, government, etc. Especially if you want career advancement or make yourself look more attractive to prospective employers. Unless you are directly involved in writing algorithms or academic research, you really won't be proving time and space complexity of algorithms in your job. A general understanding is sufficient for 99% of the jobs out there.

[mekoka]

What a strange advice. So much to disagree with, but I'll just stick with algorithms specifically. Only once I went through ds & algo, after a relatively long career, that I understood what Linus Torvalds meant by "bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships."

[goodbyesf]

> Linus Torvalds meant by "bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships."

That's why I wrote: 'Unless you are directly involved in writing algorithms or academic research, you really won't be proving time and space complexity of algorithms in your job. A general understanding is sufficient for 99% of the jobs out there.' If you are developing a kernel, then you should have a solid understanding of algorithms, data structures, etc. But 99% of programmers aren't developing kernels. 99% of programmers are working in industry - finance, healthcare, government, etc.

[mdp2021]

Let us rephrase it as

"be balanced". (Do not disregard the other sides, work on all dimensions.)