Do you understand the business and can contribute to it? As SRE you can help save cost in production (harder to make money directly by building products or features). That's a way to a more senior position.
Can you automate the task you were given? can you use you new free time to identify where else you can save cost?
I used to think knowing the business is important, but now I understand that it's impossible to know every business I'm in. I should rely on the BI for requirements and just do my job and do very well. I don't want to be a product manager or a manager so I prefer to stay in the technical side.
About the other questions, yes I automate as much as possible. I don't have any free time sadly as I'm just one man team (previously we have 6). I'm overwhelmed by this YAML engineering.
Anyway I'm starting interviewing soon.