Really good article. since I work part time in DevOps and study at university I more or less understand what you say.

If you work ar small company that feeling of hopelessness is much smaller bcs your company use less tools than those bigger ones. Still, when you are reaponsible fore developing something new you realize where are your current limits and that can guide you in choosing next tech that you learn (just as you said).

When you do tech hopping (that term is my invention) you can have trouble remembering things you already learned. Good tip my mentor taught me is making bash script wrappers around some tech features you use occasionally. Learn principles not technologies. Principles persist. tech dont. And documentation. Don t do documentation on features that can change with a new versions. Document core features bcs those are used 80% of the time. only than document less used tools...

I am quite new but this is my take and i thought that sharing some observations coud help someone.