If startups/small companies are of any interest, there is often a large amount of horizontal maneuverability due to people often wearing multiple hats. For exam

If startups/small companies are of any interest, there is often a large amount of horizontal maneuverability due to people often wearing multiple hats. For example I joined one startup (~12 employees) as the sole DevOps engineer but it quickly turned into not just DevOps but security (everything from dull SIEM monitoring, to red and blue teaming), database admin/optimization, backend development, customer onboarding, and even a little frontend. Most of those came through because I was the only one with experience handling them or a specific issue (but not always on paper) and I actively offered to help. I could have also avoided them if I wanted to, but when you can actually trust your small group of colleagues to not screw you over, its a good time branching out and learning new things at the same time. By the time I left I was spending most of the time doing security and hiring to build out teams (~100 employees when left), both my preference. Would strongly recommend small startups where you talk to the CEO practically every day and you get the sense employees are pretty happy.