What do the TopCoders, CodeJam finalists work on at their respective companies
Wondering what kind of work do folks perform on a day to day basis. The folks who are red in TopCoder and CodeJam top 100/finalists. Do they look down upon ppl with less calibre ?
I knew quite a few of them, and worked with a couple of them. Most of them are friendly and productive. Some of them founded their own companies, some even went IPO. I interviewed a finalist, who smelled aweful in a tiny meeting room, wrote code rapidly with no bug but hard to read, partial of the reason is I was dumb to understand his operation on indices, but his variables are named as abcde, gave him a good feedback anyway. Some rednames are still playing topcoder games, and don't care about promotion, just deliver work they are asked to do. Some are in very high level, I was surprised I learned c++ from a TLM of client team 10 years ago.
Sorry, didn't read your question clearly, for those who joined FANG as normal SWE, they are no difference from most people, not promoted way faster, personality, the way you work, and luck play more important role in promotion. But in general, they are trusted engs, not like some new grad only with good GPA who need handon help fron time to time.
Though not a top coder, I worked with a guy who appeared in Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. He was humble and friendly.
I’m not sure how you could get to the top 100 and not look down on people, lol
Humble people still exist. Maybe not in the US