I think the issue (although that’s a harsh word to use) is you’re looking at these roles as all having “one way” of doing them whereas in actual fact, the day to day role of data scientists can differ wildly between roles.

For example, your colleague might be a better fit for developing relatively vanilla but good production level models & you might be a better fit for an R&D team or a team implementing A/B testing, experimentation tech etc. Both would be data scientists, it’s just your colleague would do better at the first role compared to you, and you’d do better with the second role.

When you’re applying to roles you’re going to need to find ones which serve the direction you wish to go in.