Practicing in online competitions does help . At least to master the different problem solving techniques , but doing it full time would be a mere waste of time . As pointed out the way we need to code in the industry and the thought process that has to go through is way different . Yes we do face challenging problems and knowledge of different techniques / approaches will surely come handy, but i am sure it will be more worth to develop a software or contribute to open source . By this way you give yourself a chance to learn the entire SDLC and hence u will be more valued in the Industry .Ofcourse the complexity of the problems you have solved while building the software will be the criteria based on which ur skills will be judged
Google code jam is just a competition where u can tell Google you are there and you can do good programming and yes probably get hired by them !!
Google code jam is just a competition where u can tell Google you are there and you can do good programming and yes probably get hired by them !!