Hi Codeforces,

Since late 2023, I've been on a career break after stepping away from my SWE role at Google. This is the first time since high school that I've found myself without a contest schedule, structured workdays, or clear daily goals—and honestly, it feels strange. Skipping university and now pausing full-time work has left me feeling isolated, unstructured, and increasingly prone to procrastination. Many days feel chaotic, and it's difficult to find purpose or motivation to push myself into meaningful action.

I'm reaching out to this community for advice—not just on finding a new career direction, but also on how to rebuild a healthy social rhythm and regain a clear sense of purpose.

Quick background:

• IOI Bronze, 2019
• No university degree — went straight into industry
• SWE at Google — joined young; one of the youngest Kazakhs hired
• Career break since late 2023 (~1½ years)
• Side quests (mental): Chess (~2000 Elo), Counter‑Strike 2 (Faceit ≈ 2400)
• Side quests (physical): Two Ironman 70.3 finishes, including the World Championship
• Competitive programming coaching: Students range from national champions to IOI medalists; some now work at Google, Meta, etc.

Options currently spinning in my head:

1. Start a bachelor's (late, but maybe still valuable?)
2. Pivot to a trading or HFT firm (matches CP-style thinking, but a steep learning curve)
3. Return to SWE (safe, familiar, but may not feel like a new challenge)
4. Double-down on coaching or build ed-tech around CP (fulfilling, but unsure about long-term sustainability)

Questions for anyone who's faced similar uncertainty:

Career-related:

• How did you choose your next move after stepping away from CP or after a long hiatus?
• If you pivoted to trading, academia, startups, etc., what was the hardest adjustment?
• Is returning for a degree worth it if you already have FAANG-level SWE experience?
• How do you keep your problem-solving spark alive once contest adrenaline fades?

Personal/social:

• What helped you rebuild social momentum after leaving school or full-time work?
• Tips for fighting isolation and chaotic, purpose-light days?
• How do you balance your competitive drive with mental health when familiar metrics disappear?
• If you've relocated during a break, how did you build a new social circle?

I’m wide open to stories, warnings, book links, or even a one‑liner "I did X and here’s why it rocks/sucks." Anything that sheds light on life after CP would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any insight or perspective you can share!

— Zhan :)

Hey yo everyone!

Noticed that no one discusses LeetCode contests here, so let's get started.

So today I recorded a screencast + commentary. I hope you will like it, enjoy watching :)

https://youtu.be/cjyZyVWWYgQ (ranked 9th)

Всем привет :)

Некоторые из вас знают что я готовлю людей к олимпиадам по спортивному программированию, так вот, а сейчас я провожу летний онлайн камп по спортивному программированию.

Детали и требования:

1. Контесты в виде мэшапов на кф, длительность 4-5 часов (примерное начало контестов будет в 10-11 утра по UTC +6)
2. Быть как минимум берюзовым/синим на Codeforces
3. Разборы и лекции в Zoom/Skype
4. Общий чат и личка в telegram
5. Продолжительность 5-7 дней (еще в обсуждении)
6. Рабочий язык — русский
7. Цена зависит от кол-во дней, но цена будет равна $$$количество$$$ $$$дней$$$ $$$* $$$ $$$(4000$$$ $$$тенге$$$ или $$$700$$$ $$$рублей)$$$

Почему вы должны участвовать:

Моя цель и желание научить вас решать задачи, то есть показать как нужно думать в задачах и идти к решению. Мне больше хотелось бы сделать упор на крутые задачи, но я так же буду рассказывать различные крутые алгосы/техники (можем обсудить что хотим/будем проходить). Я буду сильно стараться и помогать на протяжении целых дней. Хочу сделать камп крутым, поэтому после контеста и разбора, будут лекции, и у меня не будет ограничений по времени :) Буду объяснять хоть до ночи. Так же, если я не облажаюсь все записи лекций/разборов будут приватно доступны вам.

Немного обо мне:

Я выигрывал золотые медали на Республиканской Олимпиаде по информатике, золотую медаль на Международной Жаутыковской Олимпиаде, так же бронзовую медаль на IOI и на многих других олимпиадах. Я преподаю СП, готовлю школьников к олимпиадам, провожу сборы/летние школы уже на протяжении нескольких лет и считаю что получаются довольно таки хорошо :)

Поэтому, я приглашаю вас на мой летний камп. Для участия заполните форму tiny.cc/coding-camp

Уже первый поток будет в конце июля (даты старта обсуждаются), и он рассчитан для берюзовых-синих на CF, но даже фиолетовым будет довольно таки не просто с задачами и очень поучительно.

Так же для людей с тяжелым финансовым положением в текущее время из-за пандемии будет предоставлена определенная скидка на участие в кампе.

Peace, and stay safe!

Hi everyone :)

You could notice that last time I trying hard to make content on my youtube channel better. If you don't know anything about my channel, I do video analysis of nice educational Competitive Programming problems, observe cool algorithms, do screencasts, also I plan to add coding interview problems content.

I truly believe that potentially I can help many people as well as myself to achieve not only professional goals but also become much better in CP.

So, today I recorded an interesting and in some moments funny screencast with cool detailed timestamps.

0:00 - Starting
0:30 - Solving problem A
3:30 - Solving problem B
6:16 - Solving problem C
10:05 - Solving problem D
14:27 - Solving problem E1
28:23 - Thinking on problem E2
41:16 - Switched to problem F
1:10:34 - Solving problem E2
1:36:37 - Debugging problem E2
1:40:00 - Finishing debugging and finally submitting E2
1:41:00 - Thinking on the last problem F

I hope you would enjoy the video. If you have any feedback/suggestions, you're welcome. Also, don't forget to subscribe to the channel, by subscribing you motivate me to work hard and make more cool content :)

Link to the screencast: https://youtu.be/afn_V7YkX3U

UPD:

Finally all solutions passed a system testing, ranked 50th among 18k+ participants

Hi everyone!

Am I only one having troubles with the leetcode contest, it seems that leetcode doesn't work right now.

Hi everyone :)

Yesterday my friend bekzhan29 and I were brainstorming on problem G from recent educational round, in order to upsolve it. I found this problem very cool and thus today I made a video solution for that problem.

I was taking, sometimes retaking, editing, improving sound quality in that video for almost 5 hours. So make sure to subscribe to the channel and like the video :P

I hope that this video somehow will help you to improve and maybe finally achieve your CP goals.

Link to the video: https://youtu.be/Nuym8ejFH_w

UPD: Timestamps were added, so now it's more convenient to browse through the video.

Hi guys :)

Some of you might know that I have YouTube channel where I do screencasts, explain algorithms and observe interesting problems.

Since we all love cool problems and want to improve in competitive programming I want to start doing videos more recently. So, If you have any interesting, educative problems of different levels, please share them with me in the comments below. I will try to select fabulous ones and make video solutions.

For example today during AtCoder Beginner Contest I found problem F really nice and I made video on this problem.

Link https://youtu.be/3mnwcJGO_MI

If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them below :)

Hi everyone!

This is my second screencast, but this time with a webcam and some explanations at the end.

I am posting this blog because I truly believe that most of you will find this screencast helpful and educative.

Reasons why you should watch this:

• To watch/learn how coders use stress test script to find bugs, sometimes to discover correct ideas to solution
• To watch the explanation to the problems
• To start using new cool IDE from the video
• To watch me exciting and finally solving last problem on last minutes :D

Comments:

This time I performed much better than on previous screencast, so I hope you will enjoy this :)

UPD:

All of my solutions passed final system testing, however problem D was removed from the contest because of some issues with checker program (click).

Finally, ranked 47th among 18k+ participants.

Link to the screencast: https://youtu.be/w2ihLqN9hdg

Hi everyone,

Recently I discovered Boruvka's Algorithm and I think this algorithm is really interesting. So I made a video lecture on this algorithm where I cover 2 problems related to it (1 standard and 1 relatively hard).

I hope that you will enjoy this video and learn something new. I worked very hard editing and making this video for 2 days, so make sure to subscribe to my channel and like the video :)

Here's the video click.

Comments:

I'm still working on the 2nd part of this video lecture where I'm explaining this problem CF 888G. As soon as this part will be ready, I will upload the video, so don't miss it.

Problems from the lecture

1. MST
2. Xor-MST

Problems from the readers

1. Spanning Tree
2. Kuroni and Antihype

UPD:

Any feedback is appreciated a lot. If you have any algorithms/concepts/tricks which you would like to see in the next videos, feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Thank you!

Hi!

I intend to start doing screencasts regularly so don't miss them.

Comments:

I didn't perform that brilliant, but anyway I think this screencast might be helpful, especially a part when I was debugging.

Hope you'll enjoy it :)

click

Hi everyone :)

Recently I started to work as CP tutor/coach, doing online lessons, though I have been teaching CP for several years. Probably CF is not that appropriate place to ask this (saying sorry), but I'm very curious how can I find english speaking students?

Some of the Olympiad achievements are 2 Gold Medals on Kazakhstan National Olympiad in Informatics, Gold Medal on the International Zhautykov Olympiad and Bronze Medal on the International Olympiad in Informatics.

FAQ:

• Price: just reach me by private message to discuss the price
• Teaching time: can teach any time you want (private message for details)
• Requirements: anyone with passion to programming can join my lessons

Don't hesitate to PM in Telegram/Facebook or write an Email.

Thank you!

Please, don't downvote. Your care and attention will help me very much :)

Hi everyone :)

If you have proper and prior experience, could you give some advices in preparation for the IOI? On what should my concentration be to do well?

If probably you can't give any advice because these questions are too general I put some questions below.

• How many hours did you prepare everyday to show your best on the IOI?
• What type of problems did you solve?
• What resources did you use?
• Should I do some math stuff?
• How to learn to solve problems which need a lot of observations, concepts?

Thank you so much!

Hi everyone!

I made order on CodeChef, on october 31 and it was dispatched on november 8

Tracking service still does not work and support did not reply me

If you once made order, how much time did you wait?

Thank you in advance!

I will write blog about my preparation.

You can see it here :)

Я хочу писать с тобою !

Привет CodeForces!

В этом блоге утверждают что в задачах Divide and Conquer Optimization opt[i] <= opt[i + 1]

Где opt[i] -> такая позиция k которая даёт оптимальный ответ, например dp[i] = dp[k - 1] + C[k][i]

Помогите пожалуйста понять, почему именно так?

Привет CodeForces!

Это опять я :D

На протяжении долгого времени замечал такой баг, когда вы открываете страницу статуса посылок вы не можете перейти на страницы более ранних посылок.

Пожалуйста исправьте это.

UPD : исправлено

UPD : official participants + unofficial participants

Hello CodeForces)

I was solving one problem, and a lot of time I couldn't understand why i got WA

WA code -> 
if (n > 1){
  if (Check(n)) Update(n, 1);
  else if ((ll)sqrt(n) * (ll)sqrt(n) == n) Update((ll)sqrt(n), 2);
}

AC code -> 
double x = n;
x = sqrt(x);
if (n > 1){
  if (Check(n)) Update(n, 1);
  else if ((ll)x * (ll)x == n) Update((ll)x, 2);
}

In first code if n = 302500001100000001 sqrt(n) = 550000000 but right is 550000001

I tryed to check in CodeForces custom test, it's error only in my and OJ compiler

Tell me why???

Give me some hint, how to upload photo in HQ???

Привет CodeForces и сново я :D

Под небольшим временем я имею 6 — 12 месяцев.

Я около 3-4 лет готовлюсь к олимпиадам по программированию, но первые 2 года у меня вообще получалось все печально, но за этот год я не плохо так прокачался и на протяжении большого времени мне не хватало алгоритмической подготовки, сейчас все иначе. Я как бы знаю не маленькое количество алгоритмов и применять их могу неплохо, но не вижу своего прогресса на CodeForces раундах и олимпиадах. Многие говорят просто решай много задач, даже при том что я начал уже решать div 1 B, C в больших количествах я все равно не чувствую прогресса.

Около месяца назад, моя команда прошла на финал ВКОШП и потом мы начали решать прошедшие финалы, мы прорешали все финалы с 2010 года, и на каждом финале есть как минимум по 7 решенных задач и это дало совсем небольшой профит, но совсем незначительный.

И я хотел бы к финалу Республиканской олимпиады очень сильно прокачаться но я не знаю что решать, что новое учить и потом может быть попасть на отбор IOI.

Буду безумно благодарен если сообщество CodeForces поможет мне с моими вопросами :)

Why?? Click

Official contestants.

Читал очень много о том как можно прокачаться, но так и не понял что я делаю не правильно.

Вот блог

Вот еще блог

Вот еще один блог

Их просто куча, но как реально можно начать правильно готовиться ???

Даже наткнулся на такое :D

Я в последнее время просто решаю задачи на CF и иногда учу новые алгоритмы. Я чувствую прогресс но очень маленький, я целыми днями решаю задачи но мне кажется что я делаю что-то не правильно и не могу понять что именно.

Почти все последние контесты у меня спад :(

К тому же я много писал такие блоги, но особой пользы я не получил.

Дайте максимально полезные советы

И всех с наступлением лета, хоть и немного поздно ;B

Всем привет :)

Хотел узнать, кто поедет в ЛШП?

Давайте все туда ;D