Absolutley agree. Before working for a small consultantancy I worked for two startups and a big company. At the startups I had next to no guidance but I guess I learned self reliance. At the big company the pace of work was too slow (although good for me at the time as my first Job). Now at this agency I'm earning more than I ever have before, I get to work with a variety of technologies with different clients and different teams. All the engineers in the shop are very pragmatic. No over engineering because there isn't time for that. Plus at the one I'm at there is a nice atmosphere and social life. As a new engineer you don't get put on some bullshit intern project in the corner with no real world connection. You get put on a real project with real impact, you have to take responsibility for your work and you are trusted with stuff you're only just about ready for. Nothing compares to building a different key component of a production system 5 times+ a year. If it fails that's your responsibility so you learn pretty quickly how to build robust software fast and what counts towards that and what is just fluff.