Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?

many languages gracefully handle errors, making those errors transparent to automated detection -- our crashes are now silent correctness failures

this trend in programming culture reduces our ability to do automated error detection!

you make a good point, and a good case for crash early and crash often -- with choice of erlang style recovery, or fuzzing style hard nosed correctness enforcement

Congrats on your achievements sofar. Your concern about being able to learn is a valid concern. In the comments, many suggest to learn by studying yourself. Although certainly very good to do, in my experience performance actually improves the most by closely working with experienced people and actively seeking feedback. A suggested playbook for your situation would be:

1) actively seek honest feedback from the director of the company, especially in the non-technical areas. It certainly feels good to receive compliments, but it takes courage to ask for weak spots and areas of improvement. The latter will actually help you improve.

2) identify your technical gaps and actively seek mentoring from qualified individuals. You will be amazed to learn that many high performers are more than willing to voluntary mentor ambitious young professionals. Note that usually its very important in those cases to demonstrate the willingness to learn and to go the extra mile in improving yourself.

3) think about what career progression would look like within your current employer. Given your current situation, its important to think out-of-the-box, as a defined career progression does not seem to apply there.

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I don't know, I'm of the opinion there is no true substitute other than jumping ship to a better learning environment. I think as long as you're cognizant of it, maybe that time comes in 2-3 years, maybe sooner.