| Absolutely! Competitive programming is highly focused on algorithms, data structures, optimization and your ability to come up with a solution fast. To excel in it, it may take months, or even years of practice. I've actually never met anyone yet who does really well in these contests, and they still do have good jobs. Competitive programming can really help you gain expertise in these areas - far more than a typical programmer. But these areas are just a subset of software engineering - there's a lot more to it. Of course it's great knowing it all, but for many programmers this kind of thorough knowledge isn't required. But if you wanna build new, awesome stuff from scratch (something like Redis, Git or Nginx) or you're working on a system which needs to be efficient, those skills really come in handy. Lastly, I see you're a GSoC student who has worked with Mozilla - you're probably good enough, if not great! Read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6823682 |