Is being a dev ops engineer going to hurt my career as a software engineer?

I do think so. Google wanted me, as compiler engineer, to take a dev ops role, probably in some cellar in NY. Of course I said no.

However I took a good test and even support engineer job once, because it was a major upgrade, even from software engineering.

I've been struggling with similar thoughts for a few years, as someone with a dedicated "DevOps" role. I'm of the belief devops is a culture, not a role. I believe most with a basic grasp of devops principles share that point of view. I think there is tremendous value for a SWE to do a tour/experience devops first hand, but I'm also not sure I could hold my own in a pure SWE role anymore without a prolonged period of adjustment. That said, I still think it's been worth it for me personally.

A lot of the engineers I've worked with only seem interested in closing out their tickets and care nothing for that which happens beyond getting their PR merged. I am often viewed and treated as an outsider, or an antagonist to the development lifecycle; I don't find myself being invited to many of the valuable engineering discussions. The irony is at heart I'm aligned far closer to development than operations, I just see the ops stuff as a semi-necessary evil.

Another thing I've experienced, is that "DevOps Engineer" means something different to every organization, and even among people within those orgs. Once titles started popping up with "DevOps" in them, the concepts [d]evolved into something else.

For additional context, I'm a self-taught engineer and now self-taught ops person, so constant growth and learning has been my default state since I started my career. I love that aspect, and devops was an area I knew little about, prior to starting the role. The enormous range of things one needs to consider in that role/expertise means there's almost always something new to learn.

I stumbled into a more traditional ops role by way of attrition, long before devops was a term. Out of a lack of familiarity, and sheer laziness, I got in the habit of automating everything, but once I recognized the value of doing so, I never wanted to go back. So it's just sort of been my natural place to be. The advent/widespread adoption of CI/CD was a godsend.

I do genuinely find rewarding the process of turning something that's annoying, inconsistent, and repetitive into a shiny little button, but I've also felt my software engineering skills stagnate. On the other hand, I have an entirely new set of skills to fall back on and that has knock-on effects for how I would approach a more traditional SWE role, should I find myself back in that arena.

So take this all with a grain of salt, as a lot this is probably personal to me. I feel it has to do with where I'm at organizationally, and a fairly radical switch in stack over the last couple years.

Only if you let it. I think you imagine programming and “dev ops” as distinct skills. They just focus on different aspects of adding business value. They aren’t like someone who can cook and also groom a dog trying to make those skills fit a job or career.

Employers hire people who can add value. You have to present your skills and experience to highlight how you can do that.

I spend about half of my freelancing time programming, half doing system admin and infrastructure. The skills overlap and complement each other.