It helped me a lot. I can write hundreds of non-trivial but well tested lines of code which passes all tests on the first try and is fit for code review in a co

It helped me a lot. I can write hundreds of non-trivial but well tested lines of code which passes all tests on the first try and is fit for code review in a couple of hours. I wouldn't be able to do that if I hadn't practiced competitive programming a lot. This skill wont solve all of your problems, but if you have a lot of theories you want to test then your ability to implement them quickly is invaluable, and testing a lot of your theories is how you learn most of the other important skills related to software engineering.