I was in a similar situation right out of college, and it worked out for me in the end. After I moved on from the tiny company I was terrified that I wouldn't h

I was in a similar situation right out of college, and it worked out for me in the end. After I moved on from the tiny company I was terrified that I wouldn't have the skills needed to succeed in a "real" company, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually had learned a ton and rapidly became one of the most senior engineers on my new team as well. So: it can work. What I did: * Read. All the things. Read HN comments, read tech blogs, read books. Don't put too much weight on any single book/comment/blog post—they'll almost all disagree with each other, and you'll learn the most by comparing and contrasting all of the strong opinions rather than uncritically absorbing any given opinion. * Be okay with using work time for professional development. Your employer hired someone they knew wasn't experienced into a role that is typically filled by someone more senior. They need to be okay with you learning on the job, and if they're not you need to go somewhere else. What I wish I'd done but failed to do: * Don't get overly invested and burn out. This is your first job, but it's not your life, and your career doesn't depend on you completely blowing it out of the water as a brand new developer thrown into the deep end. Don't overinvest. * Keep your eye out for red flags. Tiny companies that can't hire seniors might be small and niche but sustainable, but they might also stay small because the business side of things just doesn't work for various reasons. In my own case, it turned out the founders of the tiny company were both narcissists (which seems to be a common problem with tiny companies), which led to a ridiculous political implosion that I was lucky to escape.