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This is a good opportunity to learn by 'baptism' of fire, and if you can learn fast you can accelerate your path to senior developer. In a bigger org you may be

This is a good opportunity to learn by 'baptism' of fire, and if you can learn fast you can accelerate your path to senior developer. In a bigger org you may be forced to spend years getting to senior developer, but it sounds like you can get there quicker with the responsibility you have here. There is the stress of dealing with complex code and frameworks as a newbie, with the owner breathing down your neck. So try to negotiate more time for each task, and time for learning general web development. E.g. if they use AngularJS say you need a couple of days to learn it from tutorials etc. If they are complete assholes about it and pressure you with 'just get it done' 'we need it done by end of day' 'why is this taking so long' then maybe it is time to look elsewhere for a job. In any case look at this job in terms of if it is good for your career (and more importantly, your mental health!) and if you thrive on high pressure fast learning or prefer to work for a bigger company that has the resources to give you more time. Out of curiosity how many devs are working there? Is it one man and his dog, and you?

bbcbasic 12y ago
Following on from this, a good lesson I have learned is to try to work for profitable companies. You want the $ profit per employee to be as high as possible. I have worked for companies that struggled to make a profit, and guess what they underhire and underpay. I have worked for companies that make good profits and they hire just right and pay nice salary or bonuses. The follow-on from this is to try to work for companies with good recurring revenue models that are efficiently run. Warning signs are companies that rely too much on one off big sales instead of a broad base of customers. Also another problem is consultancies who are hiring out your time and need you to be 100% billable. The other warning sign is very small companies that are bootstrapping with tight owners who want to have lots of potential upside in the future by exploiting employees to make them do the work of many people in the early days while giving no little or no equity. Read up on HN and blogs about peoples experience with this, there is a lot written about it.

bbcbasic 12y ago

Following on from this, a good lesson I have learned is to try to work for profitable companies. You want the $ profit per employee to be as high as possible. I have worked for companies that struggled to make a profit, and guess what they underhire and underpay. I have worked for companies that make good profits and they hire just right and pay nice salary or bonuses. The follow-on from this is to try to work for companies with good recurring revenue models that are efficiently run. Warning signs are companies that rely too much on one off big sales instead of a broad base of customers. Also another problem is consultancies who are hiring out your time and need you to be 100% billable. The other warning sign is very small companies that are bootstrapping with tight owners who want to have lots of potential upside in the future by exploiting employees to make them do the work of many people in the early days while giving no little or no equity. Read up on HN and blogs about peoples experience with this, there is a lot written about it.