"don't take a job where you're the smartest person in the room" is probably more important.

a four hour commute can be mitigated (eg: work from home 3 days a week, or a mobile hotspot and pre-tax public transport commute programs, or if they want you enough a driver/moving bonus).

not having a peer to bounce ideas off of or review your code can't be mitigated.

You are absolutely right. Having a peer wih whom you can talk about what you are working on getting your code reviewed is very important and helps you improve your knowledge. This was exactly my issue.

Also I do have a hotspot, I travel by train and work during those commute hours. But because I work long hours (4+7) this leads to the second issue that I mentioned - not having enough energy to work on side projects and not being able to learn new things apart from the normal work.

Man, 4+7 is rough. If I were in your situation, I probably wouldn't have taken the job unless A) I knew I could do my own work on the commute (ie drag another laptop along, or get them to amend my employment contract so that all work done during my commute, regardless of whether it uses company equipment belongs to me), B) I negotiated to count some amount of commute time as productive hours and do some amount of work for them during the commute (eg 4+3, or if you both know that the commute time isn't as productive 4+range(3,6)), or C) I worked form home an average of at least 2.5 days/week.

btw, try Rio Adobe on de anza for lunch if you like mexican food.

There is a huge difference between "smartest person in the room" and "best in the room at platform X". I'd be curious to see if the author is making the former claim or the latter.

The reality is that any "lead" role at a startup requires you to be the best in the room at your specialty.

To be clear I meant "Smartest person in the room at platform X". Didn't mean to leave out that detail.

> The reality is that any "lead" role at a startup requires you to be the best in the room at your specialty.

Yes, it requires you to be the best in the room, but before joining I didn't honestly know what it would be like to be a lead (and only) developer for that platform x. After working for a few months I realized that being a lead so early in my career is not what I want. I still have to learn a lot things before I cab be an effective lead and lead a team of developers.