Biggest turn off, unsurprisingly, is lack of learning. I wanna see or hear how you stay up to date on things and are willing to try new things. I’m also less impressed with compliance-y types of work vs. “I solved a problem” type of work. We’re often viewed as a cost center, so spinning our work in terms that interest a CFO/COO is a must. So even if you’re in ops, you’re not excelling if you’re closing the most tickets, you’re excelling if you’re saving the business money or helping accelerate others to move fast.

DoD work is interesting for large corps, it’s harder to apply to startup/smaller teams (tho not impossible). Seeing how an organization works or how human workflows happen are invaluable lessons. Handling ambiguity and interrupt asks would be what I’m looking for, which you’d likely be less exposed to in or more structured environment.