I think it usually involves 'helper' type folks. They end up on a project, and they 'help' the project get done. But the work they do tends to be just the boile

I think it usually involves 'helper' type folks. They end up on a project, and they 'help' the project get done. But the work they do tends to be just the boilerplate (or cut-and-paste style work), or just the gathering of test resources, or a surprising amount of work that you would assume that the PM or Manager would do, but instead is done by this person (organizing meetings, setting up checklists, emailing people about current issues/priorities). This isn't to say that those people don't add value, but if they do this for a few years, they may find that their ability to do greenfield coding has significantly diminished, so much so that they struggle to write objectively simple code because they've fallen out of practice. Source: I've been one of those people, and I've worked with many. It's an easy rut to fall into, particularly in Test Engineer role (what MS used to call SDET roles).