In my experience it's more to do with whether you've proven you can do a particular type of task, and do it well. Project managers will then give you that type

In my experience it's more to do with whether you've proven you can do a particular type of task, and do it well. Project managers will then give you that type of work because you're a safe bet. I've worked with people in the past who felt like they weren't getting any of the interesting jobs. Their solution was to go to their manager and complain that they were being passed over. But if you're not proven at a task, then you're a risky bet, and you'll only be picked if there's no other option. My advice to those people (and this won't necessarily work in all industries) is to make yourself less risky. Share a weekend project with the team where you worked on the sort of problem you find interesting, and make sure it's good enough that it gets people's attention. If you can make some important people say "wow, I didn't know you could do that sort of thing!" you'll probably notice you start getting more interesting jobs after that.