I started as a test engineer on an SRE team (ads database, which I think no longer exists), did a mission control rotation, and then sort of found a way to be a software engineer (non-SRE, which pissed off the SRE leadership) and run my own projects in prod without any real oversight (that was exacycle- using all the idle cycles in prod). I used my knowledge of SRE and my good connections with SRE to run my service with minimal impacts on the $MONEY$ services.

Later I did stuff that involved working closely with SRE and hwops but always SRE-adjacent, not part of SRE. I had a standing offer to join multiple SRE groups but chose not to because I can't do oncalls while my kids are still at home.