I was the only designer at my second full time design job. You can see what I think of that opportunity in my signature quote: “The key to success in this business is to find a boss who doesn’t care.” I learned way more by being on my own than I did being in the team at my first job. In my case, I made a ton of mistakes (that I quickly learned from), said ‘yes’ to every opportunity to touch the product development process and I pushed my design skills way further than I had ever been asked to do. It was an extremely positive experience for me.
On the other hand, the organization did not understand design and canned the best ideas from R&D and myself. You win some, you lose some.