Can a telecommuting job help one grow his skills compared to job at office?

How would you compare a telecommuting (overseas) job at a startup (when everything at the startup be it the work, the environment, the people, etc looks exciting enough) with another job at the company office. (Just to clarify, both are different jobs at different companies, I mean for the company providing telecommuting job there is unfortunately no option of working at their office primarily because of lack of initial funding as it's a startup and also because it's overseas.)

Perhaps someone who has himself had a telecommuting job will be able to help best. Can telecommuting job provide opportunity of learning and growth any close to the more general case of working at the office. Does it work out well enough?

Though the job is development work (which looks like it could work out) but if I want to learn entrepreneurship skills, should I prefer a job where I'd be working at the office itself, given a choice is there.

If the question is still not specific enough, what should one take into consideration before deciding between telecommuting job vs the other case.

It depends on what you'd like to get out of the environment. Besides the money, if you're primarily looking to learn and grow from the job, I'd say being in the office and around your team members is critical.

I once took a development job where I needed to pick up C#. Being around a team it was easy to get quick answers to my questions and quick feedback on problems I encountered. Versus trying to learn C# on my own, I can honestly say that simply being in this environment shaved off a significant amount of learning time.

When doing telecommuting work you often feel like you are essentially on your own. Making phone calls can be intrusive and annoying to your coworkers compared to a close office environment where you can easily strike up a quick conversation. Remember the saying "out of sight, out of mind"? Expect to be left out of the loop from time to time when it comes to discussions and updates that occur in the office.

And not directly related to your question, but something I think you should take into account: while you may view telecommuting as the more 'relaxed' option since you are working from home, I would more often than not end up working longer hours! With no set 9-6 boundary from having to travel to and from the office, I'd often just keep working and working.

Probably not what you want to hear, as the idea of working from home is so alluring, but I hope this helps!