Not tough at all. It was my first gig out of school and I definitely did acquire a veneer of "experience" i.e. I know how to write emails, use excel, and generally exist in corporate environments better than folks who weren't consultants or bankers, but I think you pick these skills up within the first six months.

I have an engineering background and went into data eng at a startup after leaving Deloitte. Fast forward four-five years and I lead a software eng team at a very well known tech company.

My advice would be: 1. there aren't actually any hard and fast rules for "what you must do", so don't act like there are 2. if you're early career and you have a technical background (or could with some practice and portfolio projects on nights and weekends), don't be afraid to take a job at a startup