An analogy with software is that math competitions are like (very hard) leetcode.
There was an article posted on HN recently that is related: https://benexdict.io/p/math-team
The analogy is as follows. Like with with leetcode & job interviews is as follows, to excel at math competitions one must grind problems and learn tricks, in order to quickly solve problems in a high pressure environment. And, just like how solving leetcode problems is pretty different than what a typical computer scientist or software engineer does, doing math competitions is pretty different than what a typical mathematician does.
We test developer skill by giving them leetcode problems, but leetcode while requiring programming skill is nothing like a real programmer's job.