I did some research in this site to find something similar to my "problem" and I found relevant just this.
My current situation is quite similar. I'm working in a small company ( 7 coworkers ) as software engineer since November 2013. I feel very lucky cause, living in Italy, find a job is just like find a needle in a haystack. Yesterday I was updating my Linkedin profile and I found out how my University mates are working for big quoted companies while I'm not. I tried to apply, of course, but I have not ever had an email back, even to tell me I didn't fit he role I applied for. Actually I would have done something wrong, I admit but this is another ( ugly ) italian story..
So, I'm asking: Is it worth to work for such a small company regarding career and salary expectation or should I try to find a better ( higher pay, better support, better teamwork ) in a bigger one?
Right now I'm struggling because I'm the only one who works developing software. As you can imagine, finding a bug is frustrating and fix this by myself could be painful in term of time and clearness of the code. Coding everything on my own, I find really difficoult to quit the pattern I used and refactor everything, so I think the fixes I made are just horrible patchworks which hide worst bugs! :(
Anyway, when I accepted this job, I knew it but I think it could be better find a bigger company with a bigger team to work with and, maybe, an higher salary. On the contrary, if I overcome this moment and the company i'm working with grows in next few months as our boss promised, maybe I could be in a good position to lead a software team as he told me when I was hired - He images to triple the employees as soon as he can, giving me some cool guys to work alongside me.
So, according to your opinion, which is the option you would choose if you put in my shoes?