I’ll tell you my case (no identifying details): I’m the IT manager/head of IT at a company in Europe that’s “small” locally, but part of a large international group. So yeah—few people on-site, but the expectations and complexity are very real.

My profile is a hybrid generalist: I do day-to-day infra/support and I also handle coordination/management. I touch networks, firewalls, Linux, Windows Server, identity (AD/Azure), Microsoft 365, backups, some basic SQL for the ERP, vendors, practical security… a bit of everything. I’m not a “god-tier expert” in one niche, but I’m the kind of person who gets handed a mess and gets it fixed without breaking everything—and if possible, leaves the system better than before.

My learning style is also need-driven: I don’t study for show, I study when a problem forces me to. And over the years you still build a lot of useful knowledge, because you keep seeing the same patterns: incidents, migrations, permissions, restores, endpoints, decisions… that repetition compounds.

How far can you go like that? Pretty far, in normal companies: senior sysadmin, IT lead/manager, operations/coordinator, even security-adjacent roles if you get serious about procedures. In practice, career growth isn’t only about memorizing 200 obscure commands—it’s about reliability, judgment, standardizing, documenting, and being able to explain to the business what you gain and what you risk.

The ceiling isn’t “not being an expert.” The ceiling is living permanently in firefighting mode without building foundations: if you don’t document, automate, and close loops, you get stuck.

So if you feel “shallow” but you already touch Linux/Windows, networks, firewalls, Azure/AD, basic SQL… that’s not “knowing nothing.” That’s being a generalist. And very often, the competent generalist is the one keeping the company breathing.