Competitive programming & business
Programming contests usually follow a format where you are given a set of interesting problems and a fixed time to solve. I used to participate a lot in programming contests & some of the things have helped me in running HackerRank.
Sub problems The problem statement in a programming contest is usually daunting, but the first thing you do is to split into smaller problems. Once you identify the right sub-problems, you try to solve each of them and then merge. It’s very similar to any problem you encounter in a startup. The actual problem (how to grow MAU or achieve quarterly revenue numbers, etc.) looks scary but split them into sub-problems & identify how to solve each of them. Solve by first principles.
Patterns As you continue to solve more problems, you notice a pattern on how to solve a certain type of problem & also the right set of sub-problems. This helps you to solve faster. As you build the company, you can see patterns emerge, both good & bad which you can detect early and act fast. For eg: when I am trying to hire someone, it’s now easy to figure out if they are going to join us or not and act accordingly.
Brute force Once you identify the sub-problems & know how to merge, the first thing you do is to code a brute-force solution. You need to see if your idea even works for the smaller constraint. Once it succeeds, you start to optimize for larger constraints. In a startup, fix the problem right now before it bloats up and work in parallel to solve it in the longer term.
Edge cases Before you submit a solution, you look for all edge cases. What are the possible ways this solution can break? Can it fail in a special corner test case or a larger one? I can never forget this code snippet
vector<int> V; for (int i = 0;i < V.size()-1;i++){ // do something }A small bug in the code above cost me $1000, which was a big deal in college. V.size() returns an unsigned integer and when the vector is empty, V.size()-1 results in 2^32-1 causing the for loop to time out. In a startup, when you are working on a business plan or a GTM strategy, you work on figuring out all reasons why something can fail. You constantly search for those “edge” case scenarios so that you don’t miss any blind spot.Speed Speed is the essence in competitive programming. If you are slow, you are out of the race. Sounds familiar in startup world?
Competitive And of course, you are very competitive. Not only do you work hard to get better but you also try to find flaws in the other players’ code to move up the leaderboard. While this may sound “ruthless”, it’s essential in the world of business where the winner is 100x bigger than the next player in the category.
There’s a sentiment that competitive programming is just for junior programmers or those who are in college. Competitive programming sharpens your business acumen which is an invaluable trait if you are a hacker, sometimes more valuable than another hacker with a slightly better technical skill. Competitive programming is more than just solving quick challenges. It rewires your brain to a powerful businessman.
