I have seen many competitive programmer who are working in different companies. I am just thinking how do they get time to practice the coding? I mean there are lots of topic to learn and lots of things to work on ....
Well there are some of them who are already better when they entered into the Job, so at least they don't need to learn new things but I guess everyone needs some time to workout. But there is other people who also learned after getting into a job I guess.. and also there is a social life in which even if someone doesn't want to attend he/she had to sometimes. Also there are always a deadline to meet in a company work schedule.
I will be really glad if you people (Codeforces community) share your experience on this regard. Please if possible also provide the company name in which you belong.
The key things I guess everyone wants to know is :-
How much time you get after end of the day for learning or practice or learning+practice?
what is your work hour in company?
Is it stressful to do what you do?
Is it possible to become a neat competitive programmer like that (I mean doing CP and job both)?
How is your social life? // what I want to ask is How do you cope up with?
Feel free add to your experience on this regards. Take care everyone and thanks.
I thought I would see many answers. There are so many awesome coders who are maintaining both so efficiently. Don't know why any of them was not interested in answering it here. If I had the chance to meet with them I would do that for sure. Anyway if any of those coders want to tell their way of working ..feel free to message me. I will let other users know (not disclosing the name of course) about their experience if they wish me to do it. Thanks to all people who has read and answered this post."
** None of them seemed to answer. Any coder from any organization may feel free to share their experience on any of the question. It will be helpful to many fellow coders joining the software Industry or Job life."
I don't really have much to say, but whatever.
I'm currently interning at Google Los Angeles, and I can tell you that I have more time to do competitive programming than I thought I would! Usually, I'm home by around 7PM (I'm there at 11 AM), so I just get on my computer and code for the rest of the evening.
The only down side is contests. They always seem to be timed while I have work, so I haven't been able to participate in one for some time now. HackerRank is a bit more flexible for me though, I was able to participate in World CodeSprint 4, which was pretty fun.
What I do is probably considered stressful to some, but hey, if you enjoy competitive programming, than it's not bad! Sometimes, I tell people I'm going to take a break, and what I do to relax is solve problems here on CodeForces :P
I'd love to hear what people who've been employed at a Software Engineering firm for a few years have to say!
I believe it really depends on where you work, a lot! You usually work 4-8 hours a day, not the whole 24 hours; So you will have enough time for other important things.
It's not stressful at all.
I don't practice a lot, I'm not good in CP, but I always had enough time for that. I remember participating in CF rounds several times while at work! My co-workers have even been quiet and friendly to help me concentrate. I remember having 4 to 5 day trips to other cities to participate in programming competitions while I was working for a company.
And BTW my social life sucks and here is a formula that answers question number 1: Time you get after end of the day = 24 hours - (time you work + time you sleep) If you don't sleep at work :D