My "career" started as the ops/IT guy for a radio station, and concurrently as a video game tester; a rather un-glorious start if you ask me. To say I've worn

My "career" started as the ops/IT guy for a radio station, and concurrently as a video game tester; a rather un-glorious start if you ask me. To say I've worn many hats since then is an understatement; and if you build good skills, I'm confident you can do the same. As modbait points out, you definitely get catered to for your concentration, but I'd point out that I think that has more to do with how your portray yourself/your vitae. By having broader experiences, I think you gain an edge in being able to emphasize various parts of your history and tell a better story for why you fit for a given position in the future. I have a "sysadmin" resume, a "data analyst" resume, and a "full stack" resume, to name a few. From the sound of it, what you'll be touching is far from unapplicable. <mainstream cloud platform>, scripting, basic sec/platform stuff, these are all foundational skills pretty regardless of what part of tech you want to do next, I have never once regretted coming from an ops perspective initially. (In fact I proudly think it's an advantage for both understanding your whole stack, and gaining some very useful mindsets for developing and maintaining robust and long-running software. You may also become a beast at firefighting, depending on your role, which _never_ is a bad skill to have.) If you want to focus on dev, ops positions often hold opportunities to take some initiative/leverage those skills. There's a reason "Devops" is such a buzzword. Always be asking yourself how you can automate yourself out of a job. Sorry, this has been quite a ramble; "ops as an important skillset" is a topic very close to heart for me. hope this braindump is even marginally useful, and best of luck of course. Bust ass, listen to what the sister comments said about networking+projects+staying hungry for growth. This washed up ops guy is rooting for you.