Why would you need to understand how something works? Just use containers. /s
[Edited my compensation numbers to avoid down votes - yikes]
My guess is trying to sell high end services as a "principal software engineer" isn't going to be enough to justify that cash comp to a lot of people hiring.
I'd make a list of the companies where hiring/scaling the ops team will make or break the business's value delivery, and filter by companies aware of this.
You can knock this out at the recruiting step, just by asking about open developer headcount vs. open SRE ops headcount. Ask which direction that ratio seems to be going, and if there's anyone you can talk to whose job it is to change that ratio (director or VP mandate).
The referral network from working at a hyperscaler co in ops is a great way to break into the space.