Current Google-ish company person here, and this can be just as dangerous as it is beneficial. I was on this team, more than once, where I’m complacent and no one is asking for more from me... so I started helping. I thought I was moving towards leadership because I was identifying and solving the right problems for others. I felt successful.

None of this work contributed to my career path, although it was development work. I felt like a hero, but the people who respected my new work didn’t complete the feedback loop and/or my current leadership didn’t care.

It actually stole time from work that would have gotten me promoted/provided more challenges.

I felt like I lost my role as SME and instead became a jack-of-all-trades.

It was good experience and luckily did not get me fired. When I look back I realize that the problem was the team/leadership’s lack of growth-focus and support. If I had transferred teams or left the company I may have been better off. I say may have, because other than feeling like I wasted a few years learning this, I’ve ended up in roughly the same place I would have been.