Is competitive programming necessary to crack interviews?
Competitive programming (CP), which is a mind sport, is often compared with the problem solving, data structures and algorithms (PS/DS) interview round.
The purpose of this article is to clear certain misconceptions around competitive programming in the context of interview preparation.
What happens during the interview?
PS/DS round, also known as the coding round, is the most popular interview round for software engineering jobs. The primary aim of this round is to check the coding and problem-solving abilities of the candidate. During the course of the interview, you need to map problems to basic applications of data structures and algorithms.
Having sound knowledge of data structures and algorithms, their applications and trade-offs (+practice) should be good enough to do well in a problem-solving round. LeetCode, CareerCup, InterviewBit, and GeeksForGeeks are popular platforms for interview preparation related to the PS/DS round.
Isn’t that the same as competitive programming?
Though CP also requires the participants to have good problem-solving and coding skills, the primary objective of CP is to challenge participants to solve logical and mathematical problems. The focus is more on solving and writing efficient code for really hard problems in a short amount of time with/without applications of DS/Algo.
Just like any other sport, it requires you to be fit (mentally, in this case) and you can get a lot better at it with practice. CodeChef, Codeforces, TopCoder are popular platforms for competitive programming, and ACM ICPC, Google CodeJam, Fb HackerCup are the most popular CP contests.
Is sprinting required to become a good batsman?
Let’s say that there is a person Bolt who is a really good sprinter as he likes running and runs a lot regularly. Now if he wants to become a good batsman, will he perform better than his friend Gayle who has spent a lot of time practicing batting. Definitely not, right?
Let’s say he starts practicing and playing cricket, will he start batting better than Gayle? Totally depends on his practice but there is something that we know that he’ll probably be fitter and will run faster between the wickets compared to Gayle.
So, is competitive programming required to do well in interviews?
Similarly, CP may help you become a better problem solver and coder but it does not guarantee that you’ll perform well in a PS/DS round if you do not work on your data structures and algorithms fundamentals. Neither is it required for the interview if you already have decent problem solving and coding skills and have a solid understanding of DS and Algo. Though it will definitely help you in getting to the solution faster and coding it quickly if you are good at CP.
So, the short answer is: It is not essential but is definitely something that we would encourage you to try and see if you like it.
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Further Reading:
- How to prepare for the Problem Solving & Data Structures round?
- How to ace the Problem Solving & Data Structures round?
- Common Mistakes to Avoid in Competitive Programming
- SDE I Interview Preparation: The Ultimate Guide
- How to crack interviews at product-based companies?
- Which programming languages/technologies should I learn?
