Anyone’s experience on doing GIS in the utility world

I started doing GIS my senior year of high school(2018) as an intern at a water/wastewater utility. I ended up getting an associates and landing a full time job doing GIS,AMR reading, and surveying in 2019 with the same company. Around 2021 moved into a role where I managed the GIS, converted the AGOL to ArcGIS Enterprise. I was the only one doing GIS and was very undervalued at the utility due to just having an associates. This year I made a big step and moved to a small 10 person consulting firm with a 40% pay increase and absolutely love the project based style GIS for the 20 different utilities we work for.

The main question is: Who has worked in the utility world doing GIS and how was/is your experience?