> I asked people on reddit what was the best way to grow as a dev and become better
Depends upon how you define better. For many people that means becoming more employable, such as hot trends using a tool or framework. For me becoming better means writing original software solving challenging original problems.
After interviewing exhaustively over the past year the aspect that determines better is not so much company size but quality of leadership.
Most people in software have no idea what leadership looks like, which makes evaluating for strong leadership all but impossible. If you want to get better you need momma bird to kick you out of the nest so that you are forced to spread your wings.